


Beautiful Fragrance

by Mimzilla



Category: Toriko (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Animal Death, Body Dysphoria, Character Study, Depression, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Gen, Growing Up, Objectification, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2493968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimzilla/pseuds/Mimzilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exploration of Rin's life, growing up with four extraordinary boys in an extraordinary facility, and the difficulties she must have faced therein. From being alone in the streets with Sunny to finding a place in the IGO to finding a place in her own skin. Dealing with food that fights back and the desire to eat food at all; fighting monsters that tear at her skin and monsters underneath her own skin and monsters that are her own skin.</p><p>It's not very easy to grow up into a woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No Comfort and Assurance

**Author's Note:**

> “It's not very easy to grow up into a woman. We are always taught, almost bombarded, with ideals of what we should be at every age in our lives: "This is what you should wear at age twenty", "That is what you must act like at age twenty-five", "This is what you should be doing when you are seventeen." But amidst all the many voices that bark all these orders and set all of these ideals for girls today, there lacks the voice of assurance. There is no comfort and assurance. I want to be able to say, that there are four things admirable for a woman to be, at any age! Whether you are four or forty-four or nineteen! It's always wonderful to be elegant, it's always fashionable to have grace, it's always glamorous to be brave, and it's always important to own a delectable perfume! Yes, wearing a beautiful fragrance is in style at any age!”  
> –C. Joybell C.

The only parts Rin remembered of the time they were alone were like fragments of movie clips: short, choppy, and confusing. She remembered walking. Getting good at ducking into dark corners until the bad guys’ footsteps faded away. Holding tightly to Sunny’s hand. The long, empty road. An emptier stomach. Sunny’s hair—bright, so bright and so many colors—and how he could move it when nobody else could (but only after he’d had something to eat). There had been people interested in him for that, but the two of them had never stayed with any of those people. Not after one of them tried to cut Sunny’s magic hair off and Rin couldn’t remember the man’s face but she could remember how Sunny _screamed._ It was better to stay by themselves.

She was about seven to Sunny’s ten when the IGO president found them. She remembered the harsh sound of Sunny’s breath as he pushed her behind him, the shadow of the older man looming large above them both—they hadn’t had good experiences with large men who backed them into corners, either of them, and she could feel him trembling as he strained to lift his hair up and make himself look bigger. Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s, blood rushing to her muscles, ready to run at the slightest provocation. She had a shard of glass clenched tight in her right hand and she would slash this man across the face with it, she would throw it in his eye if it meant no one would make Sunny scream like that again. She knew Sunny would do the same if someone tried to make her scream. As the large man drew closer Sunny growled and made his hair into messy spikes.

The tall, muscled man had laughed at that and knelt down, smiling wide and offering her a rice ball. “For the lady,” he said. He hadn’t been looking at her, though. He was looking at Sunny, at Sunny’s hair and Sunny’s wavering defensiveness in the face of someone who would feed them. They were so hungry. So, so hungry. They couldn’t walk much longer.

Rin reached past Sunny and drove her makeshift knife up into the man’s hand until it came out his palm.

Sunny inhaled sharply and hair whirled out around her arm in a flimsy shield. Spatters of blood fell to the ground, rivulets ran across her fingers. Rin pressed forward.

The man laughed again. He’d straightened his fingers, lifting the rice ball up with the tips of them to where the blood didn’t touch it. The glass in his hand didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. He’d barely moved. “Careful,” he told her cheerfully. “It won’t taste nearly so good if I bleed on it!”

Sunny pressed back, forcing Rin to let go of her weapon and edging them both into a corner. Rin could feel strands of his hair reaching out, digging into the wall. He could drag them both up it, if he had to (and he’d done it before).

The man made no move to follow them. He sat back fully on the ground and tossed the rice ball to his other hand, still smiling. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’ve heard some great things about you, Sunny.”

“Heard it before,” Sunny told him harshly. “Leave us alone.”

“If you really want me to, I will. But I can promise that no real harm will come to you if you decide to come with me.”

“No real harm,” Rin repeated, digging her fingers into Sunny’s shoulders. “What an empty promise.”

The man had the decency, or perhaps the gall, to look sheepish. “Well, with power like you have I can’t say you won’t have to take a few hits in your lifetime. But I can promise that I’ll make you stronger.” He put his hands on his knees, looking at them earnestly. “I promise that, and I promise you’ll never go hungry with me.”

Sunny’s hair wrapped loose little rings around Rin’s fingers, thin and matted and she could break it so easily. She didn’t trust this man. The unforgiving sun would dry them to death before they found water.

What choice did they have?

She held out her hand for the rice ball.

 

 

 

The IGO was not a place designed to raise children, it was clear from the start. It was huge and white and full of scientists, many of whom were covered in animal blood and had no qualms about shouting at trespassing kids. Some of them were missing limbs, or ears, and nearly all of them had visible scars. Rin was happy they stayed away from the little room that was home.

The children, all five of them, respected the president who had taken them off the streets. Rin wasn’t sure quite yet that he wasn’t a bad man, since there was all this scientific equipment around, but he gave them food and he didn’t try to cut Sunny’s hair. He did a funny thing with his moustache sometimes, too, where it would wiggle and it almost looked like he could control it. He couldn’t, though, and he laughed again when Sunny asked.

“That’s something only you can do, because of your cells,” he said, and wouldn’t explain further.

There was another large man who visited them sometimes. He was always drunk, though, and Rin didn’t like him at all. Drunk men threw rocks and cans at street kids. This one hadn’t thrown anything yet, but it was only a matter of time. He also yelled a lot and Rin wished he would stop doing that. One of the other three boys would always flinch and start yelling back and fighting, scowling so hard he already had forehead wrinkles. He was mean, and whenever Rin would try and talk to him he would put his hands over the cotton in his ears and glare at her until she left.

A nicer boy was named Toriko, and he could always tell when the drunk man was coming and warn her. It was strange, but Rin had always known strange so it didn’t bother her. He had pretty blue hair and hogged food and sort of snarled at anyone who tried to take it (which happened a lot with the mean boy). Sometimes he looked like a wild dog hunched over his plate, feverishly stuffing his face with meat. Hunger seemed to make him feral. Toriko was the best friend she had there other than Sunny.

The last boy the president had taken in never really spoke. He stared a lot, though, especially at Sunny. Rin had always been sort of aware of Sunny’s touch—not his hands, but the fine hairs that were always questing out around him. She’d gotten used to them, and could sense them a little bit. She couldn’t see them, but this last boy maybe could, because one day he reached out into thin air to grab something that made Sunny flinch back and wrap his hair around himself protectively. The boy had flinched as well, and shrunk back without a word. It was sort of cool how he could see things even though his eyes were all wrapped up with bandages.

 

 

 

“You can do things other people can’t,” Ichiryuu said, “because you were born with something called ‘Gourmet Cells.’ These are special cells that use food to give your body powers other people don’t have, like Sunny’s hair and Zebra’s ears. They also need lots of food to keep working, though, which is why we brought you here to take care of you. It’s not easy to feed yourself on the street—you’ve all done very well. Do you have any questions so far?”

Toriko, sitting as close as possible to the president, asked earnestly, “What are cells?”

Ichiryuu blinked and glanced at all of them—Sunny and Rin curled protectively around each other, Zebra sitting as far away as he could with even more cotton wadded up in his ears, Coco watching silently from the side—before grinning widely and rubbing the back of his neck. “Guess I jumped the gun a little, huh? We’ll get all you guys a proper education starting soon. Hey, Mansam.”

The drunk man grunted and took his attention off the bottle. “Huh? Handsome?”

“No! I was just saying that we need to get these guys really settled in.”

Mansam rolled his shoulders and glanced to the side, putting down his drink with obvious reluctance. “Well I’m hardly the guy to go to about that, why don’t you talk to that Residential Manager? He’d probably know about houses and shit.”

Ichiryuu grimaced. “Yeah. I’ll get it figured out. Anyway, what you all need to understand right now is that your bodies use food to give you your abilities. Are there any questions about that part?”

Rin took a breath to ask, but someone else beat her to the punch. “ _She_ doesn’t have powers,” Coco said, pointing her out and staring hard with blockaded eyes. “Why, if she has the—“cells”—too?”

Rin squirmed in her seat, immediately uncomfortable. It felt like there was a spotlight on her, separating her out from everyone else. Sunny’s touch wrapped around her protectively, but he couldn’t stop it.

Ichiryuu’s eyes were the only ones that didn’t seem accusatory. “They haven’t woken up yet,” he said lightly. “Good thing, or you two probably wouldn’t have been able to find enough food. One was bad enough.”

It was true that they’d never quite had enough to eat, and Sunny was always hungrier than she was, but Rin didn’t think it was so good. Not having powers had meant she couldn’t even fend for herself, that Sunny had always had to keep watch over her. She had always wanted to be able to help him, even if it meant going a little bit hungrier.

_I’m not weak,_ she wanted to say. The words caught in her throat under Coco’s heavy gaze, which he _wouldn’t move—_

“Anyway,” Ichiryuu continued, “the rest of you will need special training to deal with your powers. Especially you two, Zebra, Coco.”

Zebra growled in the back of the room. Rin wasn’t sure if the choking sensation that had suddenly seized her was from Sunny’s rapidly-tightening strands of hair or from the sudden chill that had washed over her chest. The four of them needed training, but she wasn’t awake yet so she was getting left behind and wouldn’t be around Sunny anymore and then there wouldn’t be anyone she knew, just the drunk man and he was bound to start throwing things, and she wished more than anything else in the world that her useless body would just start doing _something_ because she couldn’t leave her brother, she _couldn’t_ , she didn’t know what exactly happened to street girls on their own but it wasn’t pretty and for some reason was worse than what happened to street boys—

She buried herself in Sunny’s hair and choked out the words. “I won’t—I won’t let you separate us!”

Sunny’s hair had never been wrapped around her so tightly before. “I’m not going anywhere without Rin,” he growled. “Don’t even try.”

Toriko was looking at them both worriedly, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, but Ichiryuu remained utterly unfazed. “We’re not kicking Rin out, Sunny,” he said gently. “She does have the cells, remember? So we’re going to take care of her, too. You’ll just be in different places in the facility.” He smiled brightly. “Nothing to worry about, you two.”

 

 

 

They ended up in one room, with five beds all in a line. Rin’s was always empty, since she slept with Sunny in his. It was too weird to sleep on their own, too cold and hollow. None of them minded the lack of privacy; it was quite a bit more private than their previous living conditions had been. They even had dressers of their own, though they were almost entirely empty for the time being.

Zebra slept with two pillows wrapped around his head, facing away from everyone, while Toriko would sprawl out haphazardly on his bed and take up as much space as possible. He snored terribly and was the most chatty of the five of them, always speaking louder than was necessary. Rin quickly learned that he could smell really, really well, which was how he knew when the drunk man was coming and what they would get for meals. Once she’d heard Zebra scoff a little at Toriko’s prediction and it had turned out he was a little wrong—they had leek-chicken with raspberry marinade instead of strawberry—so she thought he knew those things, too, and just didn’t bother to talk about it. Once she knew that, the little twitches of Coco’s eyebrows led her to figure out that he knew too, sometimes. Sunny didn’t know, though; she was certain of that.

She certainly didn’t know, and was more than a little jealous of their powers. It would be nice, she thought, to casually know what was going to happen at their next meal. Being surprised was nice too, but in a less special way. Talking to Toriko made her feel a little better about it, since he complained about how smelly everything was all the time and it sounded really troublesome.

 

 

 

The day came when the boys went off to their first training session with the president, and Rin couldn’t stop her hands from trembling. Zebra and Toriko were tussling around the president’s legs, half playful and half vicious, both clearly excited for whatever was going to happen. Coco had finally taken off his wrappings to reveal totally normal-looking eyes, though he did squint a lot and didn’t seem to like looking directly at people.

Rin and Sunny hugged hard, and she nodded and smiled at his whispered “I’ll be back soon.” She twisted her fingers together as their backs grew smaller and smaller down the hallway, feeling helplessly that all she could do was wait for them to return.

Mansam, drunk as always, patted her shoulder roughly. “They’ll be fine,” he said, booze slurring his words. She thought to herself that it made him sound apathetic, but didn’t say anything. “Now c’mon, we have to figure out what you’re gonna do.”

Rin stayed for a moment longer, staring down the vacant hallway where her brother had gone. He was probably already learning about his “cells” and how to use them. She dug her fingernails into her palms and turned to face Mansam.

“I want to learn about science,” she said firmly. “President said he would get us an education.”

Mansam blinked slowly at her before grinning sloppily. “Well, a brat who _wants_ to go to school, there’s a first. Alright, little miss, the science department’s this way.”

He turned and started walking, each step of his equal to four of Rin’s. She kept up, walking right next to him.

 

 

 

 


	2. Set All of These

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter there is one instance of an ableist slur in section 4.

The woman who had volunteered to take over their education, at least until an actual tutor could be found, was named Marni, She headed the research team of the first Biotope and always wore black heels that clicked smartly against the floor. Mansam located her fairly quickly and handed Rin off, making a messy excuse to leave right afterwards. Rin figured that he was actually just going to go drink some more, and Marni’s disapproving glance made her certain that was true. Mansam seemed like a weird guy to put in charge of anything.

Once he was gone, Marni turned to Rin with a disarming grin and knelt down to her level. “Well,” she said, putting her chin in her hands. “What would you like to start with, Rin?”

Rin fiddled with her hands, glancing to the side for a second, and realized that she was waiting for Sunny to answer for her. He usually did, when grownups asked them questions, because he was older and knew more things. But Sunny was off learning about how to use his hair and Rin had to answer for herself now.

She took a deep breath and looked Marni in the face. “I want to learn about Gourmet Cells, and what this place does. I want to know how things work.”

Marni smiled. “That last one will probably take a while, but I’ll do my best to fill you in. For now, I can show you around the facility, how about that?”

Rin nodded. Marni stood and extended a hand to Rin, her fingernails painted a yellow that stood out brightly against her dark skin. Rin looked at it for a second before accepting, allowing Marni to lead her deeper into the building.

“You’re in the first IGO Biotope right now,” Marni began, pressing a button on the wall to open a set of double doors. Rin recognized the phrase from when Ichiryuu had first brought them to the facility. “This is where we look into the lives and bodies of animals from all around the world, including some extinct ones that we’ve cloned from fragments of DNA.”

The room they stepped into was huge, larger than any Rin had ever seen, and was full of conveyer belt machines. Being carted around were animals, live and dead, surrounded by people in white coats. An ostrich-ape beast in a cage to their left screeched and slammed its hands against the walls it was confined in, sending a few people scurrying back. Rin had jumped, but Marni was unfazed. “We’re safe,” she assured the girl. “Don’t worry. Nothing in here will harm you, I promise. This is where my team and I do our job. We want to figure out how everything works, just like you.”

Rin glanced up at her and smiled a little bit. Marni grinned back and squeezed her hand. “Do you have any questions so far?”

“A few. What are extinct, cloned, and DNA?”

“ ‘Extinct’ is when every animal of a species is dead.” They passed by a Sphinx beast in a cage that was tearing into a large chunk of meat, splattering blood on the floor. Several researchers were watching and taking notes. “ ‘Cloning’ is when we take a small part of an animal and make the whole animal from it. And ‘DNA’ is something complicated that we’ll get to soon.” They reached the end of the room and Marni opened another set of double doors. “In here is where I work, my office. You’ll also be learning about science in here.”

Rin looked down a long hallway with a bunch of rooms branching off of it. Marni’s was at the end and was by far the biggest, and the nicest. Rin’s eyes were drawn to the desk, which was covered in paper and proudly bore Marni’s name on a plaque, and a table off to the side surrounded by squishy-looking chairs. Rin immediately wanted to sit on one, and her heart leapt when Marni led her there.

“I did my best to gather textbooks for you five,” she said, gesturing to the pile of thick, hardbound books. “They should make do for now. Those boys will probably come at separate times from you, since they have training to get done. I can try to put you all together if you want, though.”

Rin, who had wriggled into the chair as much as she could and was deeply enjoying the fluffy cushion, thought about that. It wouldn’t be too bad to be with Sunny—she felt sort of displaced and anxious without him there—but she didn’t know if she liked the others. Zebra in particular would just be distracting, and Toriko would want to talk all the time. Coco would be quieter, but he did his staring thing that was really weird.

“I don’t need to be with them,” she said finally, playing with the hem of her shirt nervously. “I can come here by myself.”

Marni accepted her decision with a nod and sat down across the table from her, pulling the stack of books over. “Alrighty then, let’s get started. You wanted to know what cells are, right?”

Rin scooted forward in her seat and focused as Marni opened up a Biology book and started explaining.

 

 

 

Rin was in their room when the boys came back from training, her nose deep in a basic biology book. Marni had explained as best she could about cells and Rin was still sort of confused, but she had a grasp of what was going on. They were going to start again from the beginning so everything would make more sense, and Rin was determined to get back to cells as quickly as possible.

“You can read?” she heard suddenly from the direction of the door, and looked up to see the four of them. They all looked tired, and Toriko was rubbing his left shoulder like it was sore. Sunny’s hair was slumped down flat on top of his head, and Rin knew that only happened when he’d been using it too much and he was really tired. He looked a satisfied kind of tired, though, and he wasn’t hurt. He’d be okay after dinner, she figured.

Zebra was the one who’d spoken, and he’d turned his face away from her right after, scowling hard. She paused and considered the question. “You can’t?”

“Of course I can!” Zebra said harshly, storming over to his bed and sitting angrily. Rin shrugged and put her book down for the moment. Sunny, looking over her shoulder interestedly, flipped through the pages a bit.

“Cool!” Toriko chimed in, looking at the book from the other side. “I only know a couple words, from street signs. Where did you guys learn?”

“There was a nice couple on one of the streets we used to visit,” Rin answered happily. “They always taught us a few words when we came by for food. Sunny stole a couple books from a library once, too.”

“And that got us chased out of _that_ part of town,” Sunny commented. “I guess it was worth it, though. Did you get this from the teacher, Rin?”

“Yeah, she’s really nice. She showed me where she worked and told me about cells and everything. What did you guys do all day?”

“We went outside and showed Ichiryuu what we could do,” Sunny answered, looking up from the book. “My powers are the coolest, obviously.”

Toriko squinted at him angrily. “No they aren’t! Mine are! I smelled stuff you couldn’t even dream of!”

“Woooow,” Sunny drawled. “You smelled stuff. That’s really impressive. Meanwhile, I lifted an entire chicken with nothing but my hair!”

Zebra scoffed from across the room. “Your powers are the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve heard a _lot_ of things.”

Rin giggled quietly watching them argue and jumped when Coco spoke from by her left elbow. “You said you had learned about cells, right?” he asked quietly. “What did she say? President Ichiryuu didn’t tell us much.”

Rin happily agreed to tell them all, feeling a bit satisfied that she knew something they didn’t, especially something so important. “Well, everything alive is made of cells. You know when you look at a piece of onion sometimes there are a lot of little squares and they make a film?”

Toriko answered “No” at the same moment that Coco answered “Yes.” The two blinked and Toriko rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I usually just eat my food, not look at it,” he admitted.

“Makes sense that Coco would notice,” Sunny said under his breath. “Since all you _do_ is stare at things.”

Coco stared at him silently. Sunny fumed at him, prompting another giggle from Rin. “Anyway, those square are cells—um, a lot of cells all together—and we’re made of the same things!”

“We’re made of squares?” Zebra scoffed.

“No, ours are circles. And the Gourmet ones come from jellyfish.”

That made all of them pause. “Jellyfish?” Coco repeated slowly.

“Jellyfish,” Rin confirmed. “A special jellyfish on the bottom of the ocean.” It all sounded so silly that she laughed saying it. “I’m not making things up!”

“What you’re telling me,” Zebra growled, “is that some sort of fairy god-jellyfish gave us special powers from the bottom of the ocean?”

Rin shrugged helplessly. “That’s what Marni told me, and she’s really smart, so it must be true.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not!”

Toriko’s brow was furrowed as he thought. “Does the jellyfish have a good sense of smell too? How does a jellyfish smell underwater?” His questions could only be met by shrugs.

Rin picked up her book again, tugging it from Sunny’s jealous strands of hair. “I think it’ll make more sense once we know about science.”

“Hopefully,” Coco agreed softly.

 

 

 

They settled into a routine, the five of them. The boys would go out to train with Ichiryuu in the morning while Rin went to Marni and studied, then in the afternoon they would come together and talk about what they’d done and Rin would try and explain what she’d learned to them. A few times a week, in the evening, the boys would meet with Marni and Rin would go with Ichiryuu to do regular training.

She had been hoping that the president could show her how to wake up her cells, but he told her that he couldn’t. “That’s something only you can do,” he stated. “This is just to get your body ready for when they kick into gear.”

Her training involved a lot of running laps and kicking punching bags. It was kind of boring, really. At least, it was until the president decided she was ready to run laps in the Biotope garden, where there was a distinct possibility an animal would catch her. Once that happened Rin understood why the boys always looked so exhausted coming in from training.

The Biotope was a beautiful place, really. Once she got used to the danger (of which there really was little, since Ichiryuu was watching carefully), she could really appreciate the place for the carefully cultivated piece of nature it was. Even the grass was bursting with liveliness, and the animals making a home there thrived. The walk through the lab facility got more interesting every time she went through it, and as she learned more and more she started to understand the processes used on the animals and plants to gain more information on them.

Marni would often give her worksheets, or a chapter to read, and then work on some of the paperwork covering her desk, which Rin quickly found out were largely permits to ship ingredients or tools to and from other Biotopes. Occasionally another scientist would fill in for Marni, one better studied in teaching writing and reading. Rin and Sunny were the best off in that regard, which infuriated Zebra and led to more than a few loud arguments. More often than not Mansam would intervene and it would just change into him yelling at all of them. Rin still didn’t like him, and Zebra still always winced at his volume.

 

 

 

When Rin was nine to Sunny’s twelve, there was a particularly bad fight.

“I’ve heard you!” Zebra shouted furiously in Mansam’s face, shaking violently. “You think I’m some kind of retard because I’m not as fast as everyone else! You say it all the time!”

Mansam scowled and pointed at him, his lily-pad sake sloshing in its bottle. His voice was a low rumble with random sharp edges of articulation. “With ears like those, brat, I’d think you could listen a bit harder when people tell you to _respect your elders_.”

“ _Why should I?_ ”Zebra screamed, his voice rattling the foot of their beds.  “ _Why should I respect some drunk bastard?_ ”

Mansam’s face darkened and the rest of them shrank away from him, all except Zebra who maintained his trembling wrath in the face of Mansam’s intimidation.

“Don’t talk,” Mansam started darkly, “about things you don’t know about. I don’t expect some kid to understand—”

“He’s scared.”

The shift of Mansam’s gaze from Zebra to Coco was tangible through the air.

“That’s why,” Coco said, curled up in a ball on his bed. “He has hands that are used to hurting people. That’s why he drinks.”

Mansam grinned messily, a grin that made Rin shake and shrink down further behind Sunny, who had instinctively shifted in front of her because that was the drunk man’s grin right before he started throwing things. “I guess you _saw_ that, huh? Well, can you _see_ how much you’re pissin’ me off?”

“Of course,” Coco answered softly. “Everyone gets angry when you tell them the truth.”

Rin wasn’t sure what would have happened after that because Ichiryuu, leaning on the doorway to their bedroom, had quietly called Mansam over. It wasn’t Coco’s kind of quiet; it was _dangerous_ quiet that cut through the tension and made everything feel that much heavier. Mansam had trudged out, shoulders stiff, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Ichiryuu followed him, and then the five of them were alone with all of the nervous energy that had built up. Pressure rose when particles ricocheted off the walls of a container more often, Rin recited to herself. The pressure in the room was intense.

Rin stepped forward out of Sunny’s grasp, tendrils clinging to her shoulders and refusing to let go. She kept moving until they had to and she was standing next to Zebra. He had his head down and his shoulders were shaking. She put an arm around him.

“It’s okay to not be good at reading,” she said, gently, just to him. “If I had to fight some big monster I would lose in a second, but you could win. I’m not getting stronger fast like you guys, but we’re all getting stronger, right? So we’ll all get to where we need to be. It’s okay.”

She reached out and hugged him loosely, feeling his tremors subside a bit. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Toriko dragging Sunny and Coco over by the hand, and a second later she was squished in between three people as Toriko shoved them all into a group hug as best he could.

“We’re family, now,” she heard him say, his voice rough with tears. “We’re gonna stick together.”

When Ichiryuu returned to their room he found them curled up on three beds that had been shoved together, sprawled out in a pile. He smiled at the sight and arranged a blanket over them as best he could.

“Sleep well,” he told the five of them, and turned off the lights on his way out.

 

 

 

Mansam stopped looking after them. Rin thought that Ichiryuu probably gave him a bit of a beat-down, given that the next time she saw him he had a bunch of bandages on his face. He was occupied with helping some scientists wrestle with a caged gorilla kong that had managed to get one arm outside of the bars, which gave Rin the opportunity to watch without being seen.

He didn’t have any alcohol on him, which was a first. In fact, he didn’t even look drunk. The way he carried himself was totally different from what she was used to—less weight behind his every step, hitting hard against the ground like a promise—and he didn’t yell at anyone. She watched him for a moment more before going on to Marni’s office.

They were getting closer and closer to the part of the textbook that talked about cells and Rin was already more certain of her understanding with the things she’d learned so far. It was a point of pride for her that she was far ahead of the boys in her education. They were, of course, physically much stronger than her at this point, but Rin was okay with that. She didn’t have much expectation for her body, if her cells hadn’t even woken up at this point. She could do other things. Be strong in other ways.

 

 

 

“We talked about cells today!” Rin exclaimed, bursting into their room with her hands in the air. “I totally understand it now!”

She stopped mid-stride when she saw how wiped out all of them were. Seeing Toriko and Zebra sprawled out on their beds covered in bandages wasn’t an unfamiliar sight, but Coco and Sunny usually tried to have at least a little dignity. Even they had left that behind and were struggling to get comfortable on their beds.

“Tough day?” Rin asked sympathetically, walking over to sit by Sunny’s side.

“You could say that,” he answered grumpily. “President made us fight one of the beasts in the garden.”

“What? Which one? Not one of the really big ones?”

“Nah,” Toriko said, waving his hand in the air to brush off the suggestion. “It was a pretty low-level one. Just capture level one.”

Rin pressed a hand to her mouth. Capture level one beasts took at least ten men armed with shotguns to bring down. Were they really getting so strong so fast?

“If it’s alright with you, Rin, we could talk about the cells a little bit later.” Coco said, smiling faintly with one arm over his eyes to block the light.

“Speak for yourself,” Sunny grunted, rubbed a hand across his scalp. “I don’t care a bit about these dumb things anymore.”

Toriko laughed, loud and joyous. “Don’t say that! We’re getting all our awesome powers figured out, right? And we did it!”

The other three mumbled a general, if unenthused, agreement. Rin smiled genuinely; she was very proud of them, and what they could do, and what they _would_ do. She hoped she could measure up someday.

 

 

 

On her twelfth birthday, Rin decided that she needed to find some kind of personalized fighting technique. Sunny had his hair, Toriko just whaled on things with his bare hands, Coco tended to form elaborate strategies to bring down his enemies, and Zebra yelled. Rin liked Zebra’s abilities the most because they were versatile at long and short range, so he could be as far away from his opponents as he liked. Something in that vein might be nice, if she could replicate it.

She had a good hand for sai swords, and Ichiryuu had started teaching her how to hit beasts where it hurt with a quick stab or a blunt wallop, but she was unsatisfied with how _common_ sai swords were. She had to be notable, with unique abilities all her own. Her cells still hadn’t activated, so it would have to come from something else.

“Fighting styles?” Marni repeated, looking mystified and more than a little bit alarmed. “I don’t know much about that. Why do you ask?”

“I just want to learn something cool, like the boys are,” Rin sighed, resting her chin on Marni’s table.

Marni hummed and pressed a finger to her mouth in thought. “This isn’t really my area, but there is a department of engineering. Maybe they could help you.”

Rin perked up and grinned, reaching over to squeeze Marni’s hands. “Thanks. I’ll see you later!”

She hopped out of her chair and was almost out the door when Marni called her name. “Rin,” she said, worry clear on her face. “I just want to make sure… Well, this isn’t a good world for women, you know. Just… be careful.”

 

 

 

The men of the engineering department were all buff, wore overalls, and called her “darlin’.” Rin disliked them immensely, but talking to them was necessary if she wanted to get into the IGO tools and weaponry cache. She endured their chortling and hair-ruffling until they finally realized that she was serious about wanting to see what they could give her. Then they crossed their arms and started talking to her like she was five.

“We can’t just let kids walk around with guns willy-nilly, little lady,” one of them said. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you should get back to your momma.”

“I don’t have a momma,” Rin said flatly. “I live with President Ichiryuu. I came here with his permission to find a weapon to train with.”

The engineers practically jerked away from her in shock. “Wait,” one of them muttered. “Didn’t we get a message about him sending a girl down?”

“What? I thought that he was kidding!”

Rin sighed and glanced around the room. She spotted a knocking gun lying on a table, partially taken apart. “Is that the gun the boys were training with this week?” she asked with a frown. “He sent Toriko down to get it. I remember. There wasn’t any fuss about that.” She turned and glared up at the men who were towering above her. “Why is my being sent down so unbelievable?”

The head engineer coughed and had the decency to look embarrassed. “This was just a minor communication issue,” he said quickly. “We’ll find something to fit you right away.”

Rin nodded and waited. The head turned and barked orders at the rest of the workers, who all dispersed back to their stations. He himself ducked into the other room and returned with a handgun.

Rin turned it over in her hands. It was fairly heavy, but nothing she couldn’t handle after Ichiryuu’s training. Size-wise it was a little large for her hands, but she had plenty of growing to do. Still…

“Is this all?” she asked the head. “This wouldn’t even take down a level one beast. I need something stronger than this.”

The man looked supremely uncomfortable. “Are you sure? I’m not sure we can give anything larger than that to, well.” Rin stayed expectantly silent as he grew more and more agitated. “I just can’t give weaponry to a girl the same age as my daughter, alright?”

“How many times have you gone into the garden?”

The head engineer blinked, surprised. “Well, I haven’t been there myself, it’s full of wild animals…”

“I train in the garden at least twice a week, more often three times,” Rin told him. “I’m not your daughter. Please find me a better weapon than a handgun.”

He wrung his hands, but did as she asked. The second time he came out, he handed Rin two gauntlets with buttons and a display screen on the top of each. “These are new,” he told her. “They should work on beasts of all capture levels. They, uh, they use special perfumes to calm down or excite animals—”

“Diluted clouds of pure chemical hormones which are rapidly absorbed into the target’s body, with accompanying effect,” Rin interrupted, strapping them on to her wrists. “I’ve read about them. Good. Thank you, I’ll take it. Does it come in any other formats?”

She walked out of the engineer’s department with two gauntlets, fragrance capsules to load them with, a rifle that would work the same way, and a better understanding of what Marni had meant.

 

 

 

“Are you sure about this, Sunny?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Sunny answered huffily, sitting primly in front of Rin, holding his wet hair up. “It looks good. Just put it on, Rin!”

“Alright,” she sighed, and carefully poured some of the dye onto his scalp, rubbing it around with her fingers. “You know it’ll be permanent, right?”

Sunny waved away her concerns. “It’s better than having to redo the color every few months. I’ve always thought it was a little too dull, you know, and the time’s come to take matters into my own hands. Just enough to enhance what’s already there, make sure you have it right, Rin.”

Rin shrugged and double-checked the instructions in the magazine she’d picked up for the occasion. “Um, do you know if I should do the other colors at the same time as this one, or wait for it to set first?”

“Let it set,” Sunny told her, stretching languidly. “If you mix them, it’ll all end up looking terrible.” He turned to point accusatorily at her. “Don’t get any ideas.”

Rin stuck her tongue out playfully and turned back to the magazine. “Then we’ll need to wait for half an hour or so. Hey, where did you get dye snail extract anyway?”

“There was a colony of ‘em in a cave the last time we went out hunting,” Sunny said with a disgusted wince. “Gross as hell, but useful.”

“How many trips is that, now?” Rin wondered aloud. “I’m jealous… I haven’t left the Biotope much, but you guys are going out all the time.”

“It’s not so great. Ichiryuu only takes us to really gross places to fight gross things.” Sunny reached out a hand to flick through the magazine pages absently. “I want to go somewhere nice for once, with beautiful people like in these.”

“Huh?” Rin looked over the woman in the picture Sunny had stopped on. “Like her? She doesn’t look like she could even lift a hundred pounds.”

Sunny pouted and flipped back to the page Rin had been on before. “Well if she did, she wouldn’t be as beautiful.”

Rin frowned a little behind his back and glanced down at her body, which certainly could lift more than a hundred pounds and looked like it. “Oh. But what about those other magazines, with the bodybuilders? A bunch of guys obsess over those in the dining hall.”

Sunny made a face. “That’s not beautiful. It’s just idiots trying to have bodies they don’t want to work for. The president has a body like that, you know? And he worked for it, so anyone who complains about not looking like that just isn’t working hard enough.”

“Your hair’s not set right,” Rin said abruptly and yanked a clip out of his hair. Sunny yelped and flailed backwards to smack at her.

 

 

 

She had spent most of her time training her legs running, so now the focus shifted onto getting her upper body strengthened. The kick from the rifle was a bit too much to handle at the moment, but Rin felt stronger every day, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she could fire off bullets like it was nothing. The fragrances were harder to get used to, really—she had to steadily build up immunity, so that they wouldn’t affect her when she used them. She felt a little loopy when the Super Relaxation smoke kicked in, but it was worth it to see raging beasts pause in their tracks and become docile. The first time she’d calmed and defeated a capture level two beast Ichiryuu had smiled wide and given her a thumbs-up. Rin thought she might burst with pride.

They were all doing a similar thing with different poisons, to get ready for when they faced animals in the wild and didn’t have medics on hand. It made everybody feel kind of sick, so there was a lot of grumbling in their shared room. The Endorphin smoke came in handy.

“That’s really cool,” Toriko told her one day, rubbing his nose and grinning. Her fragrances tended to irritate his sinuses, but he never really minded. “I’m jealous, you get the cool weapons!”

Rin blushed shyly. “Oh, well, I’m not very good at using them yet. I’ll get better, I guess.”

“Sure you will,” Toriko agreed happily, “and then we can all take down a beast together and eat it. It’ll be fun!”

Ichiryuu laughed from the other bed where he was pressing a hand to Coco’s forehead. “That’s the spirit. You lot will make bishokuya yet!” He took his hand away and contemplated Coco interestedly. He was the only one who hadn’t had any ill side effects from being vaccinated so many times, to the extent that their caretakers were investigating it. “There are few things in life like sharing a meal you’ve taken down yourself, boys! Remember that.” He reached out and messed up Coco’s hair before standing and making his way to the door. “I’ll be back later, you lot. Don’t get into trouble while I’m gone.”

Sunny wandered over to Coco’s bed once Ichiryuu was gone. “So what’s going on with you?” he asked bluntly, poking Coco with his hair. “How come you’re not sick?”

Coco brushed the strand away, frowning slightly. “I don’t know. I just don’t feel sick. It’s not a big deal, right?”

 

 

 

Rin’s shoulder ached from practice with the rifle. She rolled it repeatedly, massaging the muscle as best she could with one hand, and privately admired how much broader her shoulders had gotten. She could even pass for a boy if she tried. Sometimes she did, just because it made things so much easier around the facility. The workers actually listened, for one. She didn’t get why they would, since most of the things the boys said were really dumb.

She was on her way to Marni’s office when she ran into Mansam. He was still a drunk, she could tell, but more composed; he had his arm around a young hayanpanther that was jerking around in his grip agitatedly.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

For once, Mansam looked uneasy. He kept glancing at her and then looking away, obviously mustering up the courage to say something. “I should apologize,” he finally started, “for the way I treated you five a couple years ago. I had to, uh…” he scratched the back of his head and trailed off. “Figure out… how to…”

“Lose hair?” Rin asked blandly. Mansam stared at her in shock, and she watched him carefully. “You’ve gotten balder, baldy.”

He squinted, and for a moment it looked like he was going to erupt again, but what came out was a laugh instead of a yell. “Alright, I deserved that.” Rin could only agree. “Anyway, I got a handle on some things, and it’ll be better from now on.”

“Okay,” Rin agreed, only a little bit uncertain about his supposed transformation. He did seem to be more composed, and it wasn’t like they would constantly be in each other’s faces. She would keep her reservations for some time and see how he fared. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

Mansam glanced down at the hayanpanther. “Oh, this is Rikky. He’s with me.”

“Seems a bit unruly,” Rin commented, reaching out a hand to him. “Did you even bother to toilet train him?”

Mansam pulled back as her hand came forward. “Oh, he’s still a bit bitey, be careful—I think he has a particular taste for lady fingers.”

Rin rolled her eyes and quickly switched out the capsule on her fragrance gauntlet. “Whatever.” A quick spray of dopamine was all it took to calm Rikky down in Mansam’s arms and have him straining to be petted. Rin did it gladly, pushing Mansam’s arm out of the way. The hayanpanther circled her happily, pulling her close with one wing. She scratched behind his ears and hummed in contentment. “Good boy, Rikky! Damn, baldy, do you ever bother to clean him, his fur is all matted. You have no idea how to take care of things, do you?”

Mansam chuckled, not at all adverse to admitting it. “Well, true feelings are best expressed through fists! You’ve become a regular beast tamer, haven’t you?”

“Beast tamer,” Rin repeated softly. “You know, I like the sound of that.” Rikky purred and she pressed a kiss to the side of his face. “I’ll see you later, old man. I’m busy.”

Mansam laughed. He still irked her a bit, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been.

 

 

 

Toriko shook her awake in the middle of the night, jostling Sunny as well. “Rin,” he said urgently, hoisting her upright by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”

Rin rubbed the sleep from her eyes blearily, highly displeased at the interruption of her precious few hours of rest. Sunny had dragged the blanket over his head and was doing his best to block out the noise with his hair. “Of course I am, Toriko,” she told him, patting his wrist. “Why are you awake?”

Toriko shifted uneasily and kept looking her over and sniffing. “I smelled blood. You’re definitely bleeding.”

That made Rin pause, and as she shifted in place she realized that there was an uncomfortable wet stickiness between her legs. When she reached down, her fingers came away red.

“Oh,” she said calmly. “I was expecting this to happen sometime, I guess.”

Toriko still looked worried. Sunny poked his head out from under the covers, saw her fingers and sat straight up. “What the hell??”

“It’s period blood,” Rin told him, pulling down the sheets to check her pants. She winced when she saw that there were some spots where the blood had soaked through and stained the bed. “I guess I should find Marni or something?”

“Gross!!!” Sunny exclaimed, and shoved her off the bed with his hair. “Ugh, I can’t sleep here!”

Rin had been caught by surprise, but landing on her feet was nothing with the reflexes she’d developed. She wiped her bloody fingers off on her pants—they were basically ruined anyway—and scowled at her brother. “What? You guys bleed on stuff all the time, it’s not like you’ve never seen it before.”

“Yeah, but that’s—” Sunny gestured disgustedly at the stains on the bed and her pants. “That’s different!” He turned to Toriko, silently demanding for backup. Toriko looked between the two of them and held up his hands defensively.

“Well, I don’t think—”

Zebra’s feet hit the floor with a thud that cut through their conversation. “You’re too goddamn loud,” he snarled, storming over. He walked straight to Rin and grabbed her hand, dragging her toward the door. “Let’s just go find some lady who can take care of this shit so we can go back to sleep.”

Marni had made sure to let her know how to find someone when Rin had turned twelve, since it would be difficult normally and even harder at night; Rin tugged on Zebra’s hand until he turned to look at her. “We should go the other way,” she told him, pointing down toward the medical facility. “Marni wouldn’t be in her office right now.”

Zebra grunted in acknowledgement and turned around. It was a little difficult to keep up with him because of his recent growth spurt, which the other boys were bound to have too sometime soon. Rin grumpily thought that it wasn’t fair that they got to be tall while she got to start bleeding for days.

“Fucking ridiculous,” Zebra was muttering. “It’s just blood, who gives a shit where it comes from? Girly-boy idiot.”

She was able to quickly lead him to the section of the facility Marni had specified, the one for female workers specifically. The ladies there were very nice and, once she explained the situation, made sure to provide her with the equipment she needed, as well as some hydrogen peroxide to get the stains out of the bedding. Zebra stood watch in the corner, not picking fights with anyone for once.

“You’ve been sharing a room with those four boys up until now, right?” one of the women asked Rin. At her nod, the woman laughed lightly. “Well, that won’t do anymore! Looks like you’ll be getting your own room. A young lady can’t be staying in the same room as boys.”

Rin stiffened, digging her fingers into the bright packaging of the sanitary equipment. “Why not?” she demanded, feeling a tightness in her gut that had nothing to do with cramps. “I’ve stayed with them all this time, why do I have to leave now?”

The woman chuckled and patted her head. “It’s alright for children to live together, but now that you’re a woman it would just be indecent.”

“But I don’t want to,” Rin protested weakly. Zebra shifted in the corner, dropping his crossed arms. “Can’t I just have a separate bed?”

“We’ll get it all figured out, dear, now go on back to bed. Come and see us again if you have any questions.”

 

 

 

It didn’t take long to find their way back. Rin fidgeted the whole way and dropped Zebra’s hand before they entered the room again. He didn’t comment, which she was grateful for; she already had so much to think about, her brain was louder than it had ever been.

Sunny avoided her eye, looking a bit ashamed. Rin wasn’t about to deny that it had hurt when he’d kicked her out of the bed, but since she was getting kicked out of the whole room, too, it didn’t matter so much. He’d already stripped off the stained sheet, so all she had to do was pour some hydrogen peroxide on the spots of blood. It bubbled a little bit, and she tossed it all into the dirty laundry hamper. It’d probably stay stained, but the four of them were used to that. She could take the sheets into her new room, if she had to.

She ducked into the bathroom and quickly showered off the blood sticking to her thighs. Her pants she gave up for naught. There was no way she’d get any use out of them again, even with the peroxide. When she got back out Sunny had managed to fix up the bed with new sheets, which she gathered Coco had gotten from the closet down the hall. The room fell quiet again, the five of them settling down now that all the excitement was over.

Rin curled up against Sunny’s side, wrapping her arms tightly around him. She lay awake for a long time listening to everyone’s breathing, knowing it was probably the last time she would get to hear it like this.

 

 

 


	3. Ideals of What We Should Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated to reflect the potentially sensitive material being discussed.

When she was fifteen, Rin realized that Toriko was perfect.

Every curve of muscle on his body, every strand of that fantastic blue hair, the wolfish crookedness of his grin—it was all perfect. The whole Biotope was in love with him. He was everything Rin wanted.

The moment of realization came when he returned from capturing a beast a client had requested. He’d carried it off without a hitch, of course, but it had managed to scratch three lines across the left side of his face with its tail, leaving scars to his ear. Toriko laughed it off like it meant nothing, but everyone else pointed them out constantly and congratulated him.

“You’re a real bishokuya now, boy!” Ichiryuu laughed, slapping him on the back. “Nature’s left her mark on you, and she’s a jealous mistress!”

Toriko had, again, shoved him away with a grin, but Rin caught him turning his head to emphasize the scars whenever he spoke to someone. He was proud, there was little point in denying it; she thought it was a little bit strange to be proud of getting hurt, but then she hadn’t gotten any scars yet. Maybe, if or when she did, she’d understand that feeling. For now, she started following Toriko around like a puppy without an owner, watching him train in the garden and the coliseum carefully. He was still somehow putting on muscle mass and seemed to be getting taller by the day, even though he was already taller than a lot of the full-grown men.

Sometimes Rin could copy his exercises, and when she did she could tell she was gaining a lot of muscle. She regulated that carefully, though; she didn’t want to get too muscular, or she’d start looking really weird.

 

 

Rin planted her feet at the end of the line of cages as chaos erupted in the research facility. People sprinted past her, the alarm blaring deafeningly overhead. A Salamander-Scorpion, loose of its holding and spewing fire in every direction, hissed madly at her from the other end of the narrow pathway. All the scientists had cleared the area as protocol demanded, but the beast had already taken out at least ten of the guards. A few more had climbed up on top of the cages and were fumbling uselessly with fire extinguishers, but the beast was thrashing too hard for them to have any effect. Its tail whipped around as it crawled vertically along the bars of the holding cells, scorching deep lines into the ground.

Rin gritted her teeth, clicking a capsule determinedly into her gauntlet. “Hey!” she shouted, gaining its attention immediately. She held her ground as its breath washed over her, smelling like heat and smoke. “You wanna fight, big boy?”

It screeched and threw itself onto the ground, skittering forward on clawed limbs. The men above them shouted and ran to keep up, but Rin only had eyes for the beast barreling toward her. As it approached she tensed, waited, waited—

As it thrust its claws forward murderously, Rin tucked and rolled to the side, just barely dodging the attack. Coming back up she blocked another swipe with one gauntlet, spraying half-diluted sleep fragrance at the Salamander-Scorpion’s face with the other. It reared back and screeched again, its tail swinging forward to impale her. She jumped back in time, but the heat off of it seared her face and made her eyes water.

It dove forward, opening its mouth wide to swallow her, but Rin had been expecting that. She sidestepped it, grabbed its blistering-hot skin with both hands, and slammed its head to the ground, pounding it into the tile with her left foot a moment later. It flailed frantically under her foot, but she kept it pinned, jetting sleep fragrance directly into its face with both hands.

She had to keep it there until the fragrance took hold, and so couldn’t dodge the tail when it jabbed downward at her. It scratched a deep line into her left thigh, cutting straight through her pants. The heat cauterized the wound instantly and the sudden pain was intense; coupled with the heat it would have been unbearable for any normal human. Rin ground her teeth against the urge to flinch back running through all her veins like electricity and held her position. The Salamander-Scorpion was already slowing down, falling into a sleep that would last for days.

Eventually it stopped moving, deeply asleep, and Rin stumbled back. One researcher who had unwisely stayed behind to watch ran up to her.

“Are you alright??” she asked.

Rin blinked, looking down at her leg. “Oh. This hurts kind of a lot.” She giggled, not without an edge of hysteria, and held up her gauntlet to the concerned scientist. “Must be the endorphin smoke. I built up a resistance.”

The woman’s mouth twisted worriedly. Rin glanced around to see if she was needed anywhere, said “Well, I’d better go find a medic,” and limped off to do so. The sound of fire extinguishers started up behind her.

 

 

The medics regretfully told her that though her leg would be perfectly fine going forward, they couldn’t stop the wound from scarring. Her Gourmet Cells were active enough to help the healing process, but not yet awake and thus unable to heal her completely. She spent a day or so in one of their beds before they would let her leave.

Rin loved her new scar. She ditched her long, thick work pants in exchange for a short jumpsuit-skirt combo so that she could show it off. She strutted into the facility the very hour she was released, tossing her hair back and surveying the room. The salamander-scorpion was back in its cell, closely watched, and many of the ditches it had carved into the floor were already repaired. The IGO worked fast, used to dealing with things like this. She smiled and privately congratulated herself for a job well done.

Others also congratulated her, and she received a generous bonus from the IGO executives for ‘Quickly and Professionally Dealing with the Situation.’ Rin graciously accepted, insisting that no, it was just her job, it was exactly what any of the boys would have done. The words blossomed bright and red inside her chest, until she thought she might burst with pride.

She’d done what they would have done, and she’d done it well.

Only a few people noted her new clothes, and the scar that was still prominently red against her skin. Rin did her best not to pout about it, though she had been expecting a bit more, considering the fuss everyone made about Toriko’s scars. She’d been marked by Nature now too, but nobody slapped her on the back for it. The thought was a persistent itch at the back of her mind until she just had to throw some dignity out the window.

“We’re upgrading the locks on each of the cages, just in case,” an engineer was telling her. “Hopefully we’ll be able to avoid a situation like that again.”

“Hmm,” Rin agreed, posing with one leg on top of a box, her scar directly facing the man beside her. “If there is, I’ll be sure to take care of it.”

His eyes flickered toward her legs, and Rin’s heart leapt with satisfaction, sure he was going to mention how tough the red line of tissue made her look. She flexed her thigh the way Mansam and Ichiryuu did sometimes with their biceps, corded lines of muscle standing out powerfully.

“Right,” the man said, noting something on his clipboard. “I’m certain we’ll be able to rely on you in the future.”

He strode away without a further word. Rin’s heart sank.

 

 

The five of them managed to coordinate their schedules somehow for Rin’s sixteenth birthday, and they had an extravagant feast. Mansam had organized it, which meant there was quite a bit of alcohol on the menu, but Rin had intervened enough that she had plenty to eat still. She didn’t really like the taste of alcohol, or its effects. She suspected Sunny was the same way, though he might have just been a picky eater.

Toriko arrived carrying a two-ton spider bison wrapped up in its own web. Rin ran up to him gleefully, noting as they hugged that he’d gotten even bigger. She made him tell her all about the places he’d seen and beasts he’d taken down, wrapping her arm around his and imagining being by his side while he fought. It must be so exciting, being a bishokuya. Not that she wasn’t happy with her job at IGO, but if Toriko was to ask her to partner up—really, if any of them were, just mostly Toriko—she would agree in a heartbeat.

Zebra and Sunny arrived at the same time, bickering as always. Neither of them had taken very many clients; Zebra preferred to just go into the wild and fight to his heart’s content while Sunny was meticulous about what he would fight and what the clients would pay him for it. Still, they managed to pull in a pretty penny.

Coco was the last to arrive, and he drew back slightly when Rin went to hug him. The situation with his poison had been escalating for some time, and whenever Rin had seen him at the facility between clients he had been surrounded by scientists, all badgering him to be their test subject. She felt bad for him, really, especially since he didn’t have full control over it yet. She hugged him despite his protests, and gave Sunny the evil eye when he opened his mouth to comment.

She was blissfully happy that day, with them all gathered together around the same table. Even with the inclusion of Mansam, who she’d warmed up to quickly once he’d gotten his drinking under control, and Rikky, who had delectable taste in parfaits and made for a very cozy blanket on cold nights. President Ichiryuu observed them all with a proud, knowing smile over his glass before taking a sip and promptly spitting it out again.

An hour in, Toriko turned to her grinning and said, “By the way, Rin, how’d you get that badass scar on your leg?”

Rin choked a little bit on her bite of lettuce and had to cough until she regained her composure, cursing internally all the while. “Oh, uh, it was nothing. Just a Salamander-Scorpion that got loose in the lab. I had to take it down once it got through the guards.”

Toriko, to her surprise, looked legitimately impressed and interested. “Damn, Salamander-Scorpions are pretty tough! They’re what, capture level—?”

“Six,” Zebra supplied through a mouthful of meat. “Barely a fly.”

“I think it was a level six that gave me this, y’know,” Toriko said, gesturing to the scars on his face. Rin nearly fainted. “Scrappy things, they are.”

Ichiryuu harrumphed from his place at her right. “That one you took down was all hopped up on Battle Fragrance, remember Rin? So it was probably more like a level nine.”

Toriko oohed, and even Zebra had to look a little bit impressed. Rin blushed happily and practically glowed for the rest of the day.

 

 

The jumpsuit-skirt outfit she’d picked to show off her scar turned out to be very comfortable, and the thick work clothes she’d been given didn’t do much to keep her safe in the end, so she decided to keep wearing it. It showed off a lot of thigh, but she didn’t even think about that until the men started blatantly staring. Some of them leered, which was more than a little bit uncomfortable. She walked by them as quickly as she could, ignoring the pressure of their eyes.

It didn’t really become an issue until the vice-head researcher came up to her one day fiddling with his glasses and turning steadily redder. “Ms. Rin,” he stuttered. “I wonder if I could have a word.”

Rin hadn’t been doing much of anything, so she agreed to talk to him. Mostly she was waiting, since an old friend of Ichiryuu’s was arriving and Rin had been sent out to greet them. Whoever they were, they were running late.

“Well,” the man started, twiddling his thumbs, “it’s just that we’ve gotten some, uh, some complaints. From workers. About—” he cleared his throat, looking supremely uncomfortable. “About your outfit. Some of the men find it, well, distracting.”

Rin forgot about the person she was waiting for entirely, focusing completely on the conversation at hand. “What? The engineers and bishokuya walk around without shirts all the time, how is my outfit distracting?”

“Well,” he said helplessly, gesturing toward her legs. She pressed them together self-consciously. “It’s different.”

“How?” Rin demanded, her brain helpfully dredging up another time her body had been blatantly ‘different’.

He sighed exasperatedly at her, looking a bit fed up. She scowled at him, getting angrier by the second. “Ms. Rin, I can’t control the complaints we receive. The quickest and easiest way to resolve this problem is for you to—”

“Perhaps,” a shrill voice came from behind Rin’s left shoulder. She whipped around, shocked, not having sensed anyone approach. For a second she thought she saw an extremely short and chubby childlike figure, dressed in a black and white striped dress, hovering with the help of bee wings. Then, instantaneously, the person became the most gorgeous woman Rin had ever seen. She was tall, voluptuous, and very nearly naked. The bee dress only barely fit over her breasts, and the only other clothes she wore were red heels and a scandalously small pair of underwear.

“Perhaps,” the woman said again, smiling at the man with bright red lips, “a better solution than asking Ms. Rin here to change her clothes would be to try and hire men who don’t look that way at a sixteen-year-old girl.”

Rin blinked repeatedly, not sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her. The woman was showing an obscene amount of skin, but struck one of the most powerful figures Rin had ever seen. She stood straight-backed with pride, tilting her chin up slightly, the very picture of a Queen. The man who had been talking to Rin was practically on his knees before her, gazing up worshipfully.

“Oh,” he stuttered. “Yes, uh, of course, uh, Ma’am. I’ll just, uh, have a chat with the men, then.”

The woman’s smile faded and she pulled him up by his shirt. “Better yet,” she said coldly, “hire men who have the slightest ounce of self-control, and who can focus on their jobs without being distracted by the first glimpse of skin. Maybe then you’ll have a facility being run by scientists instead of pigs.”

She dropped him and he scrambled to his feet, bowing frantically and walking backwards until he was out of sight. Rin felt deeply satisfied, knowing what he might be feeling. Just standing next to this woman made her feel desperate to please.

Said woman smiled at her and reached out a hand to pinch Rin’s cheek. “Well, that wasn’t quite what I first wanted to see when I got here. I’ll have to have a chat of my own with little Ichi. Would you mind showing me the way, Ms. Rin?”

“Ah,” Rin said, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “Yes, of course. I’ll take you to him immediately, Ms…?”

“Warden Love,” the woman told her, taking one of Rin’s arms. “Lead the way.”

They strode through the facility, drawing stares the whole way. Rin felt that familiar discomfort at first until she realized that everyone was staring at Warden Love, and that she wasn’t discomfited by it at all. She seemed to revel in it, walking with a sashay to her hips. Rin couldn’t understand it when all she’d ever felt from being stared at was an acute knowledge of her own imperfections. She ended up staring too, trying to figure out how Warden Love could be so powerful. It was evident in the eyes of every man they passed, who all looked at Warden Love like she was a goddess walking the earth.

It was the click of her heels and the pace of her walk that brought Rin to the answer first. They were moving very quickly, not anything like the stride of a leisurely tour. Warden Love walked past lines of men like she was going into battle, and she wore her bare skin and lipstick like armor. They stared because she wanted them to, Rin saw. She took their leers and turned them into hobbles; took their attraction and used it as a chain. She enslaved them with her body, taking power where they tried to strip it from her.

She was the most amazing person Rin had ever met.

Too quickly, they arrived at the hall Ichiryuu was hosting in. “Thank you,” Warden Love told Rin, pinching her cheek. She smiled and snapped her fingers, her image instantly replaced by the person Rin had seen when she first turned around. “You’re a strong girl, I can tell. Don’t give up! There aren’t nearly enough women to keep the men in check around here.”

Rin nodded dumbly, bowing her head. Warden Love smiled wider. “You know, there aren’t a lot of people who bow to me when I look like this.”

“They must not be very smart,” Rin blurted, the words tumbling out of her lips before she could think them through. Warden Love laughed, her wings buzzing merrily.

“No, not very.”

Rin ducked her head again, mustering up her courage. “Thank you,” she said, forcing her voice to be clear and steady.

Warden Love’s wings buzzed, moving her up to pinch Rin’s cheek again. “My pleasure, dear,” she said kindly. “My pleasure.”

There was a fairly large change of staff in the research facility after that. Many of the men who’d been leering at Rin were replaced, often by women. Rin still drew stares, but she stared right back until the men became uncomfortable and glanced away. They never failed to look embarrassed. She never looked away first.

 

 

Rin accidentally tapped her bandaged fingers against the tabletop, forgetting their condition for a moment, and winced. She’d broken them wrestling another beast into its cage three days ago; unfortunately, it didn’t look like they’d scar. It would’ve been nice to have a few that weren’t on her thigh, but she could live without. More importantly, she’d felt the pain far more acutely than she should have again. The endorphin smoke had been the only thing that had helped the pain, and she knew enough about drugs to see that that was a very bad thing.

“This fragrance,” she said icily, staring the engineers down, “where does it come from?”

“It’s extracted from the anterior pituitary gland of the Drowsing Bear,” one answered, muttering. “And refined until it’s pure.”

Rin narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together in a thin line. “And why did you choose the Drowsing Bear for this?”

“It has the strongest beta-endorphins, and the best suited for this,” the singled-out engineer said rather defensively. “They’re pre-metabolized and are produced throughout its immune cells as well, so that when another animal tries to take a bite the Drowsing Bear can produce these endorphins to create an opiate-like effect—”

“Not opiate-like,” Rin interrupted. “It is an opiate. It’s a very strong opiate. The Drowsing Bear’s defense mechanism is to flood its attacker’s body with its own beta-endorphins, which are several times stronger than any other creature’s. Hence the name ‘Drowsing Bear’—it’s constantly in a state of delirium due to its own body’s chemical structure. Attacking beasts are instantly incapacitated and will often suffer severe symptoms when the beta-endorphin rush wears off.”

The engineer shuffled his feet and glared halfheartedly at her. “Yes, exactly. Why is this an issue?”

Rin pressed her hand to her face and held up her other gauntlet. “This fragrance, the Drowsing Bear’s endorphins, is a pre-metabolized opiate that is several times stronger than morphine.”

The engineer paled.

“It’s heroin,” Rin said flatly. “You have literally been giving me capsules of liquidized heroin to do my job with.”

It wasn’t exactly hard to realize, she contemplated angrily as the engineers fell over themselves promising to improve their methods. Even she had noticed, once she spent a single minute thinking about it. The IGO really needed to improve their standard of scientist.

“Try the Dusting Moth, from Life,” she told them. “It produces an easily-absorbed hormone that mimics a body’s natural endorphin rush without causing addiction or dependence. Should be easy enough to refine.”

She pointedly left her half-empty capsules of endorphin fragrance on a table before she went out the door. There were a few whispers behind her back that didn’t sound kind but Rin ignored them, happy that she didn’t have Zebra’s ears and could do so.

 

 

Exchanging the endorphin smoke hit hard. Rin pressed her forehead against the rim of the toilet bowl, cursing the engineers out with every single swear word she knew. It wasn’t even like she’d been using it all the time; with some regularity, sure, to keep the caged animals in check, but two weeks without one cloud of the stuff left her completely collapsed on the bathroom floor, retching bile helplessly.

Working wasn’t a question. She could barely lift her head, and her streaming eyes left her effectively half-blind all the time. She resigned herself for at least four days of continuous suffering, the minimum for the Drowsing Bear’s victims.

There was a quiet knock at her door. Rin twisted to squint around the corner, regretting the movement almost instantly. “ ‘m decent,” she called, turning to gag emptily again right after. “Kind of.”

The door creaked open slowly and Coco poked his head in, his eyes finding her easily in the dark room. “I came to visit, but heard you were ill,” he said softly, slipping inside and closing the door. “Are you alright?”

Rin had lifted a limp arm to shield her eyes from the light, letting it drop once the door was closed. “Fine,” she answered, grinning lopsidedly and hoisting herself to her feet. She stumbled over to the sink and washed her mouth out with cold water, regretting the lack of breath mints in her cupboard. “These cramps’re worse than the ones I get for my period, though, and that’s sayin’ something.”

She sat back down next to the toilet, knowing it was a bad idea to stray far at this point. Coco joined her, draping a thick, fluffy blanket around her shoulders. Rin dug her shaking fingers into the material and burrowed deeper, mustering a smile. “Fluffpaca wool. Gather it yourself?”

She saw the vague outline of him shaking his head. “I’m afraid not. I haven’t been able to go out much.”

“Scientists got you down?” she asked sympathetically. “Me too. They gave me goddamn heroin to fight with.”

He paused for a moment. “Ah, that’s what brought this on.”

“I already told them off. You can if you want, though, they might listen to you more. You’re the poison guy.” Rin couldn’t help but let a little bit of resentment creep into her tone. She had been working with chemicals long before Coco had gotten his poison, but everyone acted like he was some kind of genius about them now. He didn’t even want to be poisonous.

Perceptive as he was, he probably caught the undertones, but didn’t comment. “So it seems,” he said instead. Rin had to concentrate to hear him past the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. “I’ll have a word. They want to see me anyway. More tests.”

Rin was going to say something comforting but had to jerk forward and retch again, so just swatted her hand backwards to approximate a pat on the shoulder. She might have connected, but he moved backwards before she could be sure. That annoyed her, and she squinted at his outline until he explained himself.

“I don’t want to make you worse.” He placed a light hand on her back, past about four layers of clothes. She thought he might be wearing gloves. “It’s probably not best that I be here while you’re already sick. I should go.”

Hell no, Rin might have said if she wasn’t keeping her mouth firmly shut to prevent further gagging. He shifted to get up and she tangled her fingers in his coat, dizziness crashing over her in a wave. Her legs felt like jelly, but her arms worked well enough to let her keep her grip. He stayed half-crouched for a second before moving back to sit on his knees.

She made sure he wasn’t going anywhere before she turned to spit into the toilet. Coco patted her back again. Once her coughing fit was over Rin turned and dragged herself closer to him, leaning fully on his shoulder and pressing her thigh up against his. He stiffened, and she reached up to wrap her arm around his shoulder, her hand resting lightly against his bare neck. Gradually, second by second, he relaxed, and leaned against her as well.

“I’m a second-class dangerous being at least,” he said quietly. “Probably first-class.”

“Bullshit,” Rin said hoarsely, wishing her dizzy, delirious mind could come up with something better to say. Toriko would know, he was good at comforting people. She squeezed him tighter. “You’re a teddy bear.”

He gave a startled laugh, which made her giggle in turn. The movement of her diaphragm shifted her stomach unpleasantly and she sprang forward to retch again. She felt Coco’s fingers brush against her jawline and neck as he pulled her hair back for her. He hadn’t been wearing gloves, or wasn’t anymore.

 

 

The glances that Rin got when she walked through the facility weren’t leers anymore, but full-on glares. No one said anything insubordinate, at least not to her face, but there was a clear air of discontent surrounding the other researchers. Rin had put up with it at first, thinking it was some temporary issue they had with her pointing out the engineers’ mistake, but it never went away. They followed her orders, but she came to the uncomfortable realization that she didn’t really have any friends there. With her brother and the others gone, she was essentially alone with Mansam and Rikky. Mansam was a good enough man, and she liked teasing him, but they weren’t exactly equals. He was a secondary father figure of sorts, she supposed, coming after the president. She spent a lot of time with Rikky, combing his fur and eating the Horohoro parfaits the chefs prepared for the oversized Hayanpanther. Sunny was appalled when he found out what her diet had essentially been reduced to, but Rin ignored him and his prissy attitude.

“It just shouldn’t be this hard to get food without booze in it,” she said to Rikky one mealtime, curled up against his wing. He purred in response, his nose buried in a tall glass. Rin huffed and turned a page in her magazine, admiring the smooth curves on the actress the article was about. “Freaking baldy, meals taking up the entire kitchen staff every day. He could stand to eat a little less too, huh?”

After she’d dyed Sunny’s hair, Rin had always harbored a quiet curiosity about the magazines he’d gotten all those subscriptions to; when she’d asked whether he kept reading them after he started working, he’d just shrugged it off.

“Those ones are for women,” he’d said. “I looked at the ones for men, but they’re all hideous! I just have to create a new style. An elegant one, of course.”

Though she’d never say it aloud, Rin agreed that Sunny probably could create a new fashion style by himself. He was flamboyant enough to attract the attention of the industry, and confident enough that the critics’ words would fall off him like water off a duck’s back. He’d never look like the magazine models, who were all soft curves and smooth expanses of skin unhardened by muscle, but he was still beautiful.

Lucky, Rin thought, swallowing her jealousy and placing the magazine over her corded, muscle-bound thighs. Lucky to be able to pull that off.

 

 

“Toriko!” she exclaimed, dancing forward to throw her arms around him. “It’s been soooo long!” Nine months, ten days, seven hours, twenty-three minutes. She’d done the math.

Toriko returned the hug happily, and Rin nearly swooned when she heard him take a breath next to her neck. She wondered what he smelled on her, exactly? Maybe the perfume she’d picked out was a little strong, she didn’t want to smell totally like lavender if it made her less interesting to his nose. He didn’t look like he minded, but Toriko didn’t often tell people their flaws bluntly like Coco did. He mostly grinned and adapted. Oh, she felt faint when she saw that grin.

“Good to see you, Rin,” he said, pulling back to smile at her. Rin blushed, hyperaware of every muscle of her face and how they should work to make her look the best. She’d practiced in the mirror: eyebrows up slightly but not enough to make her look surprised; eyes wide and eyelashes fluttering; chin up and neck extended; lips parted every so slightly. Sunny would be jealous of the picture she made.

“Is that Sake Swan I smell?” Toriko asked, turning to stare at the dining hall and salivating slightly. “That’s high-class!”

Disappointment dragged at Rin’s heart, but she made sure that it only showed in a cute pout. “Baldy got it this morning, for dinner tonight.” Toriko punched the air, his arm muscles flexing and veins standing out strong against his skin. All the disappointment in Rin’s heart evaporated, replaced by lightheadedness. She tensed her own arm unconsciously.

“What have you been up to?” he asked her, leaning close to sniff her again. Rin wondered frantically if he could smell how fast her blood was pumping. “You replaced your fragrance, right?”

“Yeah, with the Drowsy Moth,” she answered. “Ah, no, Dusting Moth!” She scratched her head, poking out her tongue cutely. “That was wrong, hehe.”

“Oh, you can’t eat those, right?” Rin could see the second Toriko immediately lost all interest, and he hadn’t even noticed her. Frustration curdled her mood again, but she took a breath and resolved to keep trying. “I’d like to try and get a Drowsing Bear one day, though—I bet it would be delicious, if you could get rid of the side effects.”

Severe nausea, mild hallucinations, stomach cramps, dysphoria and depression, constantly watering eyes, and diarrhea for a period of four to seven days. Can’t be treated with other opiate-based painkillers, and some effects may linger for a week post-detox.

“It would make you pretty sleepy, huh?” Rin asked with a girlish giggle. Toriko blinked at her and furrowed his brow.

“I guess?” he ventured, looking more than a little bit confused. Rin swore internally and made sure to smile as cutely as possible. He smiled back, but it wasn’t his full-hearted grin.

Mansam interrupted them by striding into the room and greeting Toriko with his usual shout and handshake. Rin lingered by his left arm, admiring every perfectly sculpted facet of Toriko’s body. It was strong, wonderfully powerfully strong, but moved easily and with clear control. He surpassed every bodybuilder Rin had ever seen on the cover of a magazine without trying. The line of his jaw and his cheekbones would make most models green with envy, though they weren’t girlish by any means. Even his clothes matched him perfectly: pulled taut over bulging muscles, showing them off without being aggressive about it, and designed for practicality over aesthetic. Sunny could take a lesson. He really worried far too much about his appearance.

Rin spent half of the conversation mentally waxing rhapsodic over Toriko’s body and the other half brushing hair away from her face to draw attention to her eyeliner, which had taken about thirty minutes to do to her satisfaction. As such, she missed most of the subject matter and was shocked back into reality when she heard Zebra’s name.

“I hear he’s been… fighting a lot,” Toriko was saying, gnawing on a leg bone and looking worried. Mansam snorted and slammed his tankard back on the table.

“You could say that. That kid’s been terrorizing entire countries ever since we let him loose on the world. Last I heard he’d eaten an entire species or two to extinction and sent about a hundred of the Gourmet Police to the hospital. He’s going to get in some serious trouble. Only reason he hasn’t yet is because of the president’s influence.”

Rin pressed a hand to her mouth, forgetting her perfectly applied lipstick. Toriko slowed his chewing and looked down at the meal. “I could go get him,” he offered, subdued. “Try and knock some sense into him.”

Mansam shook his head, taking a deep swallow of his drink. “He needs to get in trouble.”

 

 

Later that night, Rin sat on her bed with all her magazines spread out in front of her, feeling slightly betrayed and kind of silly about it. It wasn’t like they’d promised the tricks would work, except that they had promised, and the tricks hadn’t worked. She’d even gotten a push-up bra for the occasion and worked out which color red looked best with her skin tone. And yet, she couldn’t get even a passing compliment from her dream boy.

She scowled and flipped through one of them, eyeing the colorful spreads of thin, feminine women posing sensually. Not one of them could handle a bazooka like her, or work out the chemical structure of a beast’s hormones, but apparently they were the ones getting what they wanted out of life.

Rin put her chin in her hand and contemplated a voluptuous woman with full red lips. Was it because they had a similar allure to Warden Love? She’d gotten what she wanted, certainly, and had presented a similar picture. Maybe Rin just wasn’t getting something that other women understood and could take advantage of. She wasn’t anything like the models, to be sure, and with her job she wouldn’t ever be.

She moved over to the bathroom, standing naked in front of her full-length mirror. She examined her body with a critical eye, spreading her hands out over her thick thighs. Her shoulders were too broad to be feminine, and didn’t slope the way she’d like them to. Her breasts were alright, a bit asymmetrical maybe, but they contrasted strangely with her muscular abdomen. She turned sideways and placed her hands along her waistline. She didn’t have any fat, but couldn’t get much thinner; doing that would mean losing muscle, which she needed for work. She tapped her fingers, frowned, and contemplated her options.

Would Mansam notice if she took a little less food at mealtime? Probably not, she didn’t share his dishes anyway. It wouldn’t be hard, and it wasn’t like her Gourmet Cells were particularly active. She wouldn’t starve, just lose a few inches about the belt.

She sighed and moved on. Her ass was… passable. It was too muscular to have the nice curve it should. Her thighs were, of course, far too thick to be ladylike. It was the parfaits, she thought glumly. They tasted great, but went right to her legs. She’d have to find an alternative. Just a few pieces of fruit, maybe. Oranges were good for the skin, right? One of the articles had said something about that.

Her ankles were way too meaty. Her wrists, too. Rin fingered the lines of her bone structure under the skin and wondered if dieting would help that, too. Her gauntlets were pretty heavy, so that probably didn’t help. Practicing with the rifle had built up her shoulder muscle, too.

She spidered her hands across her body, searching out every imperfection she could find and cataloguing it, reviewing ways she could get rid of them.

Mostly it was just her, the way she was, and there was no fixing that.


	4. Elegance, Grace, and Bravery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for the chapter have been added to the tags.

 

Rin’s seventeenth birthday present was to be transferred to work at the Gourmet Coliseum. She’d insisted on it and Mansam hadn’t needed much convincing; the boys had all worked there at different points, though in a very different fashion from how she would be. Her fragrances would be invaluable in getting the beasts ready to fight or cooling them down afterwards, and she didn’t have to set foot in the ring herself. It was the best of both worlds, she said to herself as she toured around the new workplace. The boys were better at beating down animals, and she would fit in more easily here.

She had her own desk, even. A short but sturdy thing, made of solid wood. Rin had filled it with emergency makeup equipment, as she didn’t have a lot of paperwork to do. Still, she liked having it there, a physical reminder of her station. Not to mention that having bronzer ready when she noticed herself looking pale was very convenient.

Because there were fewer handlers than there were in the research facility Rin was busier in terms of having to corral animals to be shunted into the arena, but they were mostly very docile before the battle fragrance took them. They were used to the procedure, having been raised to fight.

Rin leaned against the bars of a Troll Kong’s cell, watching it breathe slowly. It was lying on its back, arms spread wide, not resisting the pull of the sleep fragrance in the slightest. This one had won all its battles so far and was still alive as a result. She’d watched a few of its fights, how the crowd screamed its support when the Kong was winning and immediately turned on it when it wasn’t. If it didn’t dance prettily enough it was out the door, replaced by another puppet with the same strings attached. She reached through the bars and patted its finger. It barely responded—the only indication it had noticed her was a slightly deeper, rumbling breath. It was tired, she could see. So, so tired.

Rin sighed and turned her back on it. Never a good idea to get sympathetic with the animals. It would probably die the next time it went out.

If it died, that was fine. That was just the way things were.

 

 

 

“ _Oh_ my god, how many of those disgusting parfaits have you been eating?”

Rin made a face and glanced up at Sunny. He was leaning over her desk, pouting disapprovingly as he glared down at her thighs. As usual, there wasn’t a single imperfection on his face, even when he was furrowing his brow and sneering. “I’ve told you again and again,” he said haughtily, “those things are practically poisonous. Honestly, Rin, it’s like you don’t even care what you look like—”

“Sunny,” Rin cut him off, tapping her pen and ignoring the huff he gave. “It’s nice to see you and all, but I’m busy. Go yell at baldy for not shaving his chest or something.”

Sunny straightened up and sighed melodramatically, brushing a hand through his hair. It fanned out behind him unnaturally, its vibrant colors catching the light in just the right way. “I don’t know what I did to deserve such a manly-looking sister,” he lamented. “Clearly all the beauty in the family went to me. Well, if you’re ever going to be more receptive to my advice, I’m still willing to give it. Anyone can be beautiful with enough effort!” He paused and thought for a second. “Alright, not anyone, there are some lost causes. But almost everyone has potential, including you. It’s all just dedication.

“I’ll be by the kitchen when you’re done, Rin, and we can catch up,” he called over his shoulder as he turned to go. “Even these cooks just can’t seem to understand the value of a properly aesthetic dish, I have to direct their every move…” His complaining faded away as the door shut behind him. Rin exhaled silently, feeling disgusting for being relieved—Sunny was her _brother._ They had survived on the streets together for years, long ago, and when they’d gone their separate paths in life she’d missed him terribly. But it was so hard to enjoy his company now that it felt like all he did was criticize her.

To be fair, he did criticize everyone—Rin didn’t think he’d visited IGO once without going on a ten-minute tirade about Mansam’s “tacky, lazy, unfashionable, and just gross” tank top—and that was just a part of who he was. She didn’t hold it against him or anything, but putting up with it was simply exhausting.

Rin slumped over on her desk and groaned. She just needed a thicker skin, honestly. It wasn’t as if he was saying something she hadn’t heard before, or something that she hadn’t told herself. Sunny was beautiful because he worked hard, so he deserved it. He didn’t have Toriko’s effortless perfection, but the appearance of effortlessness was just as good. Rin doodled aimlessly on the loose paper she’d been pretending to work on, a report due weeks ago that had been sitting on her cluttered desk, and cursed her own jealousy. If Sunny was more beautiful than she was, then it was because he worked harder at it. She had no right to feel this way.

 

 

 

Some days, the Thunder Peppermint fragrance she’d developed was the only thing keeping her going. It would work for several days, in fact, which negated the need for coffee and most food. Rin was wary of using it too often after her encounter with the Drowsing Bear fragrance, but she couldn’t deny that it was convenient to have plenty of energy no matter how few calories she consumed. Her work didn’t suffer for it, she reasoned, and her waistline benefitted. Ignoring the hunger pangs was a matter of willpower.

Days came and went, melting into weeks and months. Hardly anything differentiated them. Rin cycled through her routines, walking through the same halls and the same doorways, greeting the same people, clicking the same fragrances into place. She barely paid attention to which ones were which, anymore—if she fumbled one and got the wrong reaction, she could just fix it with another. It wasn’t that big a deal.

Her gauntlets felt heavier nowadays. When Rin thought about it she figured it was because her arms were slimming down, getting more delicate. She was pleased with how her wrists looked, though they were still a bit manly for her tastes.

Her coworkers sometimes glanced sideways at her and shared knowing looks. A part of Rin was colored a vibrating, sickly yellow with wondering what they were saying behind her back, but the rest of her was a grey apathy that smothered all desire to find out. When she proved capable enough to look after the beast cages on her own, most of the other workers were allocated to other facilities. Rin was relieved, mostly; she wouldn’t have to deal with that anymore.

Beyond the frayed edges of energy that the fragrances sent buzzing through her veins, tiredness was pressing against her. She felt it, sometimes, when she was lying awake in her bed. She was fine. She was fine. She was fine.

This was just how things needed to be.

 

 

 

Mansam pinched her arm as he walked past, swigging his Lily-flower Wine. “When the hell’d you get so thin?” he asked loudly. “Get some meat on those bones, girl, nobody wants to marry a stick insect.”

“Whatever, baldy,” Rin said, swatting his arm away. She didn’t care enough to respond further, though she did glance sideways at the mirror. She had lost weight, true, but not _that_ much.

“Handsome??”

“I didn’t even say anything that sounds like ‘handsome!’ ”

He grumbled and stomped away, heading out the door into the crowd area of the Coliseum. It was a particularly packed house today, likely due to their recent success in capturing some beasts with decently high capture levels. A Redfang Koala, Deepwater Crocodile, and Cormorant Trio were the main attraction; all three were pacing agitatedly in their cages, hyped up on Battle Fragrance. The Crocodile had been the most troublesome to exite, since it had a natural resistance to Battle Fragrance, but hardly anything could fight it for long when it was almost undiluted. Rin hovered by the control panel until the light signaling the start of the match came on, letting her know to release the fighters. She did so, her fingers shifting across the buttons and switches that controlled the safety regulators. They had to be a bit more cautious than usual because of their fourth guest.

She went to check on it in its fortified cell another hallway down. Her rifle was secure on her shoulder just in case, but she didn’t think she’d be needing it at all—the Devil Snake was lying complacently on the floor, apparently asleep.

That wouldn’t do, since it would need to go out if the other three weren’t exciting enough. Rin sighed and shoved her hand into the chamber’s gas valve, pumping in a cloud of Battle Fragrance next to the beast’s head. It stirred immediately, the feelers of its mane twisting in place as its eyes opened. Rin watched it for a second to make sure it had been the right fragrance—she’d been wrong before—then turned on her heel to head back to the control panel.

The reading on her gauntlet caught her eye when she went to jump over the railing next to the panel.

[85/100 BattFre]

She hadn’t changed the concentration from what she used for the Deepwater Crocodile.

Rin didn’t even have time to curse aloud before the Devil Snake’s shriek reached her ears. It was writhing in its cell, shooting out limbs in every direction to claw holes in the walls. It had already vomited its digestive fluids on the wall leading to the arena, which was slowly but steadily melting.

She went for the Super Relaxation capsule, but the Snake had other plans. Having sighted her as the only other living thing in the immediate area, it attacked the bars of the cell frantically, bending them with each rapid strike of its arms. Within a second it was able to reach out and lash at her, gauging her calf. Rin gasped at the pain as she dove out of the way, adrenaline rushing through her veins. The beast’s claws scratched at the floor where she’d been, cracking the tiles so that they shifted under her feet. She lost her footing for a second.

It was enough. The Snake snapped its claw forward and had her legs in its grasp, dragging her backwards toward the cell. Rin caught a twisted bar with one hand on the way in, holding onto it with all the strength in her body; every part of her screamed in protest, certain that the Devil Snake would tear her in half.

Rin took a shuddering breath, pushing past the pain, and aimed her other hand at the Snake’s face. She’d gotten the Relaxation Fragrance in when it first attacked—if she could just get off _one shot—_

It screeched and vomited on the bar she had a hold of, forcing her to let go or be dissolved along with it. Rin curled into a ball as much as she could in the Snake’s hand, bracing herself as it spun to smash her into the wall.

The breath left Rin’s lungs as the stone crumbled against her back, and for a horrible moment she was sure that her spine would break. Either the wall would give or she would, and between the Devil Snake’s claws and the reinforced Coliseum she suspected she was the weakest factor—

The Snake’s hand crashed out into the arena, dropping Rin so that it could draw back and claw at the shattered wall. Rin hit the ground and instinctively rolled to her feet. The overwhelming ache in her left shoulder meant that it was probably dislocated; Ichiryuu’s training took over before she could think and she grabbed it with her right hand, jerking it back into place. It did so with a sick crunch and Rin choked on the pain.

The stadium was in a complete uproar. The spectators were leaping up out of their seats, clamoring to identify the newcomer and see if she was worth betting on. Rin caught a glimpse of Mansam on the other side of the wall, shaking the man in charge of the displays and pointing angrily to where her name had appeared in the rankings.

The beasts quickly took up her attention. They had paused when the Snake broke through, but the battle instinct pushed them past any caution. The Cormorant Trio struck out at her first, its three heads driving forward from different angles to skewer her on its beak. Rin just barely avoided them, sidestepping as best she could with her bleeding calf, and the wind brushed against her face as the bird’s beaks buried into the sand inches away. It pushed her backwards and forced her to dive to the side, landing her directly in the path of the Redfang Koala. The ground cracked under its paws as it jumped high into the air, balling up to create a virtual cannonball plummeting towards its target.

The air of the stadium shook with the crowd’s roar as the Koala crashed into the sand, the force sending Rin flying across the arena. She curled up in midair, but hitting the ground again still jarred her back and leg. The chance that her ribs weren’t cracked was miniscule at this point, and that was generously optimistic. The Koala growled in disappointment when it realized it had missed, but the Cormorant Trio distracted it soon enough, attacking with its wings and pecking for its eyes with three beaks. The Devil Snake was still hissing malevolently, and the hole into the arena steadily widened. Rin watched them just long enough to make sure they would occupy each other for the moment before the Deepwater Crocodile rumbled threateningly from the side, drawing all of her attention.

Rin eyed the Crocodile. It was out of its element, being at its fighting best in the open water, but it could still crush her between its jaws easily. She snapped her rifle out of its holster and planted her feet, staring it down. The Devil Snake’s scratch on her calf throbbed, and her shoulder still ached. She was gasping for breath as her back muscles burned, already abused and tired. She realized, looking into the Crocodile’s eyes, that she felt very, very hungry.

It waddled forward shockingly quickly on its stumpy legs, its snout weaving back and forth as it tried to keep both of its wide-set eyes on her. Rin watched it carefully, darting around its jaws when it snapped at her and smacking its scaly snout with the butt of her rifle. Its breath was putrid, and the gusts of wind from its nostrils stirred up clouds of sand that stung her legs. A plan came together in her mind.

The rifle went back over her shoulder for the moment and she dug her feet into the ground, pushing off to sprint around the side of the Deepwater Crocodile’s head. It curved around to follow her, twisting into a crescent shape, but it wasn’t built to make such sharp turns. She reached its blind spot, just behind the ridge of the ear where its own head would block its view, and clicked a new fragrance into her gauntlet, spraying it immediately. The Deodorant cloud spread over her body in a wash and she clambered up onto the top of the beast’s head using the cracks between its scales. The thickness of its skin would prevent it from even feeling her there, and now she was essentially invisible to its sense of smell.

It turned in circles looking for her, but Rin kept a strong grip on its scales as she approached the head. The crowd screamed; her name clicked upwards in the rankings. She took hold of her rifle again. The Crocodile froze as Rin slid down its snout, grabbing the ridge around its nose to swing herself around and plant her feet along its lip. She jammed her rifle straight up its nose, cocked to fire.

There was an eternal instant where Rin saw the beast’s pupil contract, fear swimming up out of the depths of its mind.

She fired mercilessly, one round after another. Undiluted Thunder Peppermint rocketed directly into the Crocodile’s sinuses, kicking its vascular system into overdrive. It roared and shook its head, limbs spasming as energy flooded its system in an uncontrollable rush. Rin let go, pushing herself away from its seizing body. She flipped through the air to land haphazardly on her feet some distance away, stumbling with her rifle at the ready in case the beast had some fight left in it.

There was no need. The Deepwater Crocodile fell onto its side, dead, its heart giving out under the extreme stress. Its body twitched a few times, then was still.

Rin was deaf to the crowd’s delighted pandemonium. She stared at the dead creature, mechanically replacing the Thunder Peppermint fragrance in her rifle with a Super Relaxation one. She had forgotten what it felt like to run with a beast at her back, to trust that her body could deliver her from harm. There, with blood running down her leg and adrenaline throbbing through every artery, Rin recalled that it had been a long time since she’d eaten some proper meat, thick and dripping with still-warm blood. Her mouth watered.

The Cormorant Trio’s cry from the other end of the stadium shook her out of her thoughts. The Redfang Koala had gotten a grip on one of its heads and was tearing its flesh apart with long, hard claws. One of the Koala’s eyes was a mess of blood, but the other was bright and vicious as it glared down the Cormorant’s two other heads that were jabbing at the its throat, aiming to pierce a jugular.

Rin brought her rifle up and took aim carefully. It had been a while since she’d practiced and her shoulder was already trembling hard. Still, enduring this was better than having to go over and use her gauntlets at close range.

She breathed out slowly, focusing along the sight of her gun. When her lungs were empty, she squeezed the trigger four times.

Four fragrance bullets arced across the stadium. Three exploded into the mouths of the Cormorant Trio, sending it stumbling backwards to crash onto the sand. The fourth hit the Redfang Koala directly, but it had one dose to the Trio’s three and kept its feet. It sighted Rin with its one good eye, its breath an aggressive rumble in its throat, faltering steps forward becoming a full charge to run her down.

Rin watched it approach along the line of the rifle. One more bullet to the face had it stumble, trip over its own limbs as they became suddenly limp, and collapse forward to slide along the ground. It came to a halt at Rin’s feet. She hadn’t moved an inch.

The crowd was beside itself as Rin leaned on her rifle, catching her breath. The majority of the spectators had liked her performance, apparently, and quite a few people had betted on her victory. She lifted her chin and glanced around for Mansam, who usually stuck out quite a bit, but he was gone. Rin frowned, a little disappointed but mostly confused that he would leave in the middle of the fight.

The Coliseum wall finally gave out completely.

The Devil Snake screamed as it entered the arena, arms shooting out to grab the sleeping Koala and Trio. They were so fully under that they didn’t even stir as it killed them. The battle fragrance, coupled with mounting frustration, had pushed it past the battle instinct into a reckless desire for wanton killing. It scratched at the glass dome separating it from the crowd, sensing life just beyond its reach. The Devil Snake hissed, fluid dripping from its jaw to steam on the ground.

Rin got off one shot to its face before one of its tentacles caught her across the right side of her face, snapping her head back painfully and sending her flying. She hit the ground and bounced, skidding a few more feet. Her rifle slid to a halt a yard away and she scrambled to pick it up again, the sand scratching her knees and palms raw. The Snake was slithering its way toward her, its joints twisted and bunched up. Rin got to her feet, holding up the rifle with one hand. Her left shoulder was shot, but she took aim anyway. The Snake was close enough that it didn’t matter if a bullet went wide.

The recoil on the first shot made the second miss, but then Rin could adjust and correct for it. The following bullets found their mark down the Devil Snake’s throat, slowing it down a little with each one. It wouldn’t stop screaming angrily, which gave Rin a glaring target; the fragrance had undoubtedly left it operating entirely on rage. Gas swirled constantly around its face, choking it, but it kept barreling forward.

Bulges grew at the tips of its mane, which curved around to point half at Rin and half at the glass dome. Goblets of dark poison dripped from the ends, and Rin flipped her rifle around in her hands, gritting her teeth against her protesting shoulder. The Devil Snake hissed madly and shot poison everywhere, staining the glass and making parts of it drip molten onto the dirt floor. Rin spun her rifle in a tight circle, turning it rapidly in both hands fast enough that it could act as a makeshift shield and catch the deep purple gobs being spat at her. Each time the weight of the rifle fell onto her left arm her shoulder screamed, but if she stopped she would die. When the assault finally ended she fumbled the turn of the gun, letting it fall out of her hands. It hit the ground and smoked, rendered useless. Her skin burned where broken-up drops had gotten past her guard.

Rin backed up carefully, switching out the capsules in her gauntlets. One she used a small cloud of in her own face; the endorphins would help her stay on her feet, at least. The other she set to create as large a cloud as she could in a wide circle. The Snake plunged directly into it, emerging from the other end to discover her missing. It tilted its head quizzically, a moment of stillness falling over the area.

The Deodorant cloud was steadily filling up the entire stadium, obscuring everything from view. The spectators groaned in disappointment. The Devil Snake’s limbs could be seen, but only vaguely; it was pacing around the circle, occasionally striking out and making rich men and women jump in their seats.

Rin crouched in the Deepwater Crocodile’s mouth, breathing as quietly as she could. The Devil Snake didn’t rely only on smell so it would find her eventually, but until then she had time to get what she needed. One of the Crocodile’s teeth lay on the ground at her bare feet, next to her shoes; the other, she finished securing to her right wrist with one of her socks. She tied the second one as the Devil Snake’s heavy breathing drew close, closing her eyes for an instant. Here, with the stink of dead meat and fetid air around her, Rin realized that as tired of life as she was, she didn’t want to die.

She jumped out screaming, her makeshift swords at the ready—

And stumbled to a halt. Mansam had the Snake pinned with one arm, holding it down as it writhed impotently. Rin stared. He hadn’t even released his knocking.

“Hey,” he greeted, jerking his head back to the hole in the wall. “see if you can get one of the other reinforced cells ready for this guy, huh?”

The Deepwater Crocodile’s teeth weighed down heavily on Rin’s arms.

“Rin?”

“Let it go,” she told him blankly. Mansam blinked at her. “The match isn’t over yet. My name’s in the rankings. Let it go.”

“But you—”

“You wouldn’t have interfered if it was Toriko, or Sunny,” she spat, frustrated tears building in her eyes. “Animals come into this cage to win or die. It’s not over yet. Let go.”

Mansam didn’t respond for a long moment, looking into her face silently. Rin thought that maybe, like this, he could understand. She was finally speaking a language he could hear.

“Okay,” he said, tossing the Devil Snake away. He clapped her on the back on his way out of the arena. “Don’t lose.”

“I won’t,” Rin said, watching the beast get back onto its feet. She could feel that this was the end. The sand shifted and gave against the bottoms of her feet and the wounds she’d suffered earlier faded away to a whisper of an ache. If she survived this last bout, if the body that had carried her this far could go just a little farther, then she would deserve to live.

She lifted one fang in answer to the Snake’s scream. It weaved around, watching her closely, wary now that it had tasted defeat. Mansam took his last step past the wall.

The Devil Snake launched itself forward, driven too hard by bloodlust to be cautious for long. Rin sprinted to meet it, forcing herself to believe that she was strong enough to come out of the Coliseum alive. They met in the middle of the circle, the last of the fragrance cloud dispersing.

The Devil Snake’s mane jabbed downward, sharp points coated in poison. Rin saw them all coming in slow motion. The Crocodile’s fangs were light on her arms, and her hands blurred as she cut apart each of the strands coming toward her. The teeth smoked slightly, partly dissolved, but they were still sharp enough. Rin ducked past an attacking claw and jumped directly into the beast’s mane, using its instant grip on her legs to secure herself and drive her makeshift swords straight into its throat.

The Devil Snake howled in agony, its hair loosening; Rin wrenched her wrists free of their ties, widening the Snake’s wounds in the process, and tore the binds around her legs apart with her bare hands. As she hit the ground pain erupted along her entire back and she knew she wouldn’t be able to fight any more than she had. The Snake ignored her, focusing instead on the fangs in its neck. It clawed at them, tearing them out of its own flesh. Rin rolled away from its thrashing form and watched it writhe as it bled freely. Without the fangs to act as stoppers, the frenzied beating of its own heart sprayed its blood across the sand. It stopped moving in seconds.

Rin lay barefoot, bloody, and victorious in the Coliseum.

 

 

 

The crowd echoed the screams of the animals in its joy.

Mansam caught her right shoulder as she stumbled out of the ring, squeezing it gently. “You did a good job,” he murmured awkwardly.

Rin reached up to pat his hand, accepting the praise. Exhaustion seeped into her bones as she wondered whether she could have won if he hadn’t thrown the Devil Snake off its blood high. It was a moot question, she supposed. There was no real way to tell.

“Filthy,” she forced out of her leaden lips. “Gonna get cleaned up.” Mansam’s hand fell off of her shoulder as she moved past him.

She’d collected a stockpile of medical equipment in her room that was more than enough to handle what she’d been dealt in the arena. The most difficult thing to deal with was disinfecting the open wounds, which had already gotten covered in sand and the Deepwater Crocodile’s saliva. Scabs were forming, but Rin tore them away to get at the area beneath. They fell to the floor and Rin’s lip curled in disgust. Ugly things. She’d be covered in them for at least a week.

She haphazardly washed the grime off, then layered alcohol and bandages on her leg. Hopefully that would be enough. Rin cleaned herself as best she could with one hand; the burns she’d gotten from the Snake’s poison protested each time they went under the hot water. Her left arm was still painful to use and probably needed a sling. She could get one from the medical staff easily enough. It would be difficult to match an outfit to an unfashionable thing like that, though. She’d probably be fine without it.

She examined the cut on her cheek in the mirror. The open wound itself wasn’t particularly bad—the Devil Snake’s hit had been largely blunt force and she’d definitely have a black eye for a while, but the bleeding was already stopping. It, like the cut on her calf, wouldn’t even scar.

How unfair, Rin thought, that she could go through all of that and have nothing to show for it. A facial scar would have been nice—it would have given her something perfectly in common with Toriko.

The thought ground her to a halt. As she looked in the mirror she could see Toriko, tall and beautiful, effortlessly proud and lively, a trio of scars running horizontally across his cheek. Impossible to doubt. The paragon of the strength that IGO valued without the destructive instinct that had devoured Zebra; everything Rin had ever wanted to possess for herself. Toriko lived easily within the dual ideals that had pinned Rin and driven her down. He had the freedom to be as gentle or soft or openly emotional as he liked while still being strong, he could be beautiful and powerful in one body, but no matter what Rin was she couldn’t be _both._

She pulled the skin of her cheek up slightly, stretching the cut and opening what little clotting there had been. Blood ran down her face in tiny streams, dripping down into the sink. She turned a small, square blade, popped out of her razor, over in her fingers.

 

If she could just be—

 

 

A little bit _more_ like him—

 

 

 

The razor blade clattered in the red-stained sink. Rin pressed her hand to her face, blood flowing freely through her fingers. Her breath caught in her throat and her legs finally gave out, sending her sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. The new, longer and deeper cut would definitely scar. She smiled breathlessly, turning to press her bleeding cheek into the mirror. Her reflection smiled back at her over her right shoulder.

… Right…

A sliver of ice grew in Rin’s chest as her reflection’s smile faltered and desperation grew in her eyes. Blood soaked steadily into her shirt, smeared across the surface of the mirror as Rin turned to face it fully.

Toriko’s scars were on the left side of his face.

She shakily grasped for the medical box, finding it behind her leg with unsteady fingers. A second careful look at the cut assured her that she couldn’t keep it from scarring without going to see the medical staff, who would examine it closely and start to ask questions about how clean it was, how precisely made…

The ice in Rin’s chest sublimated into steam, expanding inside her chest until it forced its way out of her in a furious scream. She screamed so hard it hurt her throat and whipped the box around to crash into the mirror, shattering it into a thousand glittering pieces. They fell around Rin’s head, landing in her hair and shoulders. She kept smashing the box into the broken mirror until there was nothing left that could reflect her. Her screams changed gradually into sobs.

She couldn’t even _scar herself_ right.

Rin curled up against the wall of her bathroom, surrounded by pieces of glass and knocked-over medical supplies. She felt, again, the fog of grey apathy surrounding her; the savage survival instinct that she had rediscovered in the Coliseum was beyond her reach. The salt in her tears stung when it reached the cut on her face, a now eternal reminder of her own ineptitude. She dug her fingernails into her arms, cursing herself and the body that wouldn’t stop being so horribly different from everyone else’s.

 

 

 

She stayed in bed for a long time, recovering. No one bothered her. Mansam dropped by early on to check on her and to reassure her that the Coliseum was fine, some other workers would be able to pick up the slack, she could rest until she was healthy again. She smiled and thanked him and when he was gone she closed her eyes and contemplated the fact that she, like all the other animals, was replaceable.

The bandaging she’d done on her leg had, apparently, been subpar, or maybe it was that she rarely bothered to change the dressings. Whatever the case, the wound got infected and for a week she drifted in and out of hazy fever dreams. Scorpions crawled over her leg, dripping acid and weeping softly; when she reached out they scuttled away. A parade of masks trooped by her bedside, tutting, and turned into ears that she hid under her covers from. Each sound felt like cannon fire and she couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear it. The light was far away and far too bright, so harsh in its luminescence that it blinded her. She would pace around twisted labyrinthine images of the arena, the sounds of battle always just around the next corner, the next corner, the next—

She blinked and heard low voices by her bedside. Was it her bedside? It might have been the infirmary. A hand was holding her wrist, rubbing gentle circles into her palm.

She sighed and relaxed a little, not caring enough to try and decipher what the people were saying. Looking up she thought that she saw Sunny’s face, more drawn and imperfect than she’d ever seen it, seeming almost regretful. Impossible, she thought, Sunny never regretted anything.

She might have said so aloud, because he winced and held her hand tighter. She squeezed back as best she could with limp fingers and laughed at how unwashed his beautiful hair looked. Now she knew he wasn’t real. She fell back into a different nonsensical dream.

 

 

 

Disembodied, invisible fingers lightly brushed against her right cheek, her calf. They pressed against her shoulder and back. Each touch brought a bone-deep ache that was infinitely preferable to the nothing she was accustomed to. “Did you do it on purpose?” they whispered. “Did you do it all on purpose?”

Rin didn’t know. She didn’t remember. She wouldn’t put it past herself.

 

 

 

Ironically, once she was back on her feet and doing her job, her facial scar brought her more admiring glances than the one on her thigh had. Rin might have found it amusing if she could muster the energy to care. Her routine continued. She was more careful to watch the beasts as she sent them into the ring, though none were as dangerous as the Devil Snake. Mansam came by more often, bringing Rikky with him. Rin smiled and laughed and dug her fingers into Rikky’s fur, feeling its silky familiarity. It didn’t comfort her anymore; nothing really did. She refused Mansam’s offers to spar. Sunny sent her letters far more frequently, and those that she didn’t ignore completely she replied to tersely. When she watched the animals fight she dug her fingernails into her palms and repeated _I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,_ but she could never manage _I want to live._

She was doing what little paperwork she had when the click of high heels on tile surprised her out of her concentration. Few people came to visit her, and none of them were men inclined to wearing high heels.

When she looked up, she dropped her pen. Marni smiled gave a little wave, sitting down on the chair across from her.

“Hello, Rin,” she greeted softly, looking slightly abashed. “It’s been a long time.”

Rin wet her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah, it has. Hi, Marni.”

There were wrinkles around the corners of Marni’s smile now, and along her eyes, and streaks of grey had wound their way into her hair. “I came by to see how you were doing, and how the boys were doing.”

“They’re…” Rin paused, struggling to remember the letters she’d glanced at and tossed away. “Toriko and Sunny are fine. Working. Sunny’s still picky and Toriko’s still always hungry.” She fiddled with her pencil awkwardly, uncomfortably aware of the vagueness of her answer.

Marni hummed and smiled nostalgically. “And Coco?”

“Coco decided to get a house in some tiny town. He got tired of everyone freaking out about his poison.” Rin squinted, thinking back. “I’m pretty sure he’s a fortune teller now.”

The older woman laughed lightly. “He always did like his personal space, that one. I think I can see how the pressure would have upset him—scientists have a terrible tendency to start seeing people as test subjects if there’s a discovery to be made. I hope he wasn’t too upset by it.”

The chances of that were low, but Rin thought it tactful not to point that out. Neither of them had to bring up Zebra—everyone knew what Zebra was doing. It was all across the news, accompanied by photographs of wrecked cities. “What about you?” she asked. “You’re still working?”

Marni shook her head. “No, I retired a little while ago. My old bones aren’t quite up to handling wild beasts anymore. We had a nice little party as a send-off, and the new head is very capable. I think they’ll get by without me somehow.”

Rin paused for a moment to contemplate the thought of a research facility without Marni in it. She almost couldn’t; the two went together inextricably. “Wow. I didn’t realize you were even thinking about retiring.”

“It all happened after your transfer, I’m afraid,” Marni sighed. “I had so much fun teaching you all, I’ve been considering joining up with a school to work as a tutor now that I have time. Small children are slightly more manageable than ravenous beasts, after all.”

“Only a little bit. Remember when Toriko almost ate your samples because they looked like candies?” A small smile crept across Rin’s face at the memory.

The older woman laughed, pressing a hand to her mouth. “Yes, it’s a good thing you were there to stop him or he might have had a colony of weaponized bacteria living in his stomach. It wouldn’t have tasted very good, I’m sure.”

Rin gave a small laugh, falling silent. Those old memories seemed so far away from where they all were now.

Marni watched her carefully. “Well, I’ve heard about everyone else,” she said. “How have you been, Rin?”

“Fine,” Rin answered with studied evenness. “I’ve been fine. The Coliseum is nice.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Marni hummed, raising her eyebrows. She leaned forward and took Rin’s hands in hers, squeezing them tightly. Her palms were roughened from years of working with animals, like Rin’s. “I hope that’s the truth. Honestly, all those scars have me a little worried. I know you’re more than capable of handling yourself, though.”

Rin bit her lip hard and fought to keep tears out of her eyes. “Thank you,” she choked out, flushing in embarrassment. Her vision blurred so that she couldn’t make out Marni’s face. She felt a hand cup her cheek as it all spilled over.

“Rin?”

She shut her eyes tight, clutching at Marni’s hand. “It’s hard,” she whispered. “Like you said. This isn’t a good world for women.”

She heard Marni take a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. “No,” the other woman agreed. “It’s not. But not for the reasons I believed when I told you that.”

Rin rubbed away her tears and found Marni’s eyes again. She was uncharacteristically serious, her mouth set in a thin line, but her gaze wasn’t hard or condemning. Her thumb stroked Rin’s cheek gently as she continued.

“When you were young, I worried for you. I believed that those boys would always leave you in their shadows, and that you wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. I thought that being a girl put you at a disadvantage. That might have been why I took such a close interest in teaching you—so that you would always have a path open to you. My affection was, of course, genuine, but I cannot deny that there was an unfounded ulterior motive to my actions. Unconsciously, I decided that you would always be weaker than they were; I think that all of us, your makeshift guardians, did at some level. And I am sorry, Rin, for that, because if we hadn’t bought into that so much things may have been very different for you.

“I said then that this isn’t a good world for women because I believed that the world turned on strength and aggression and anger, and that women could embody none of those things, that we had to be delicate and kind. But I was wrong. The world is far, far more wonderfully complex than that, and, as you grow into the fine young woman you are, you can be anything and everything. This isn’t a good world for women because we have to work twice as hard for half the acknowledgement, achieve twice as much for half the reward, and take twice as much discouragement with half the support. We have to fight battles that our male counterparts will never know, because their ability has never been doubted as ours has. I cannot say that I did not lose that fight, though I have been happy, but you are stronger than I, Rin.” Marni pressed her lips to Rin’s forehead softly. “I know you can and will be happy.”

Deep in the depths of the fog that had been consuming Rin, the harsh highs of feeling that had eluded her for so long were pressing forward, growing taller. They clamored and screamed, demanding to be heard, refusing to be pushed away any longer. They fought forward and tore a hole through the apathy, and finally finally finally Rin took a shuddering breath and cried. She stumbled to stand up as Marni did the same and they hugged, both wrapping their arms close around the other. The fog remained, but she knew—it wasn’t forever. It wasn’t invincible.

“I missed you, Marni,” Rin sobbed into her shoulder. “I missed you so much.

“I haven’t been fine.”

 

 

 

Mansam looked surprised to see her when she found him in the dining hall. Rin thought it was probably because she’d barely set foot there for more than a year. The smell of the food set out on the table washed over her—surprisingly, it wasn’t all alcohol-based. Her stomach growled.

“Hey, baldy,” she said, plopping down in the chair next to him with her legs over the armrest. “I see you’ve still got the kitchen under your thumb.”

He blinked and grinned toothily around his bite. “Did you just call me handsome?”

Rin kicked her foot out at him, catching his elbow. “No! Listen, I… was thinking…” He paused his eating, focusing fully on her. Rin shifted uncomfortably in her chair, forcing herself to continue now that she’d finally started. “That I could maybe take you up… on that spar?”

Mansam sat back, wiping his hands on a napkin, and looked at her contemplatively. He had a still expression, a rarity for him, and Rin thought that he looked a little bit guilty about something. “Sure thing,” he said finally, reaching over to clap her on the arm. “How about we finish up this meal here, then we can have a spar. And then—” Rin blinked at the plate he’d shoved over to her, laden with food. “Then we should sit down and have a talk.”

Rin nodded and smiled shakily, picking up a fork. “Okay.” She started eating, bearing with the guilty feeling she got as the fatty meat touched her tongue. It was delicious. “Nougat Mongoose,” she said softly to herself. “Full of protein, despite the soft flavor. Its light taste makes it ideal for those who are recovering from injury or a shock and would be adversely affected by powerful sensations. Capture level seventeen.”

Mansam grinned and ate along with her.

 

 

 

The psychiatrist shook the small bottle of pills, making them rattle percussively. “Pamelor,” he said. “Considering your… unique situation, I don’t think it would be wise to use a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, and I have to recommend that you either stop being exposed to so many different chemicals in your workplace or develop a method of keeping them from affecting you. Depression is, basically, a chemical imbalance in the brain. While their presence may not have caused the depression, they certainly couldn’t have helped. This prescription shouldn’t interfere negatively with anything since you aren’t taking other medications, but if you do have an allergy to it or the side effects get too strong, tell me and we’ll get you onto a different one.”

Rin took the bottle and examined the little capsules inside. “What are the side effects?”

“Dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth, constipation, trouble urinating, and weight gain are all possible. You may not get some of them, and you may get them to different degrees. Everyone reacts in their own way. The best way to avoid them is to keep a steady diet and to exercise regularly—take care to stay healthy, essentially. Two tablets a day will do to start with, I think.”

 

 

 

Sunny sniffed in distaste looking down at the white and orange pills. “Not very beaut’ful,” he said. “They could at least pick out more appealing colors.”

“Do you ever think about anything other than how stuff looks?” Rin answered sourly. “It doesn’t matter if they’re pretty as long as they do their job.”

He huffed and propped a hand up on his hip, tossing the bottle back to her. It clattered as she caught it, half empty. “If you’re goin’ to be eating them every single day, I’d hope you’d care ‘bout how they look. I certainly would, it’d make me feel even worse havin’ to put those ugly things in my mouth.”

Rin suppressed a scowl and shoved the bottle back into her desk drawer. Her therapist had mentioned that people might not understand, that depression was hard to describe to someone who’d never felt it, that it would be hard to explain why she hadn’t—

“For goodness’ sake, Rin, why didn’t you just say something before all this happened? We could’ve just dealt with it and been done with it all.”

She slammed her hands down on her desk with a crash. _“Sorry,”_ she said venomously. “I was kind of busy _hating myself._ ”

Sunny stiffened and Rin immediately felt guilty. They stood in silence for a minute, shifting awkwardly. She fiddled with the hem of her fancy shirt, thinking mournfully of the nice dinner reservation that she’d actually been looking forward to. So much for a reassuring night out with her brother.

Sunny sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. “I just—” His hair twisted around itself, fidgeting. “I just don’t understand how I didn’t even know something was wrong ‘til recently.” He turned to face her fully, uncertainty written across all his features. “Why _didn’t_ you tell me anything?”

Rin hesitated, fighting the urge to drop everything and leave the room, abandon the conversation for good—she could just leave, avoid everyone, shut them all out again, fall back into that gray that had dominated her life…

She sat down heavily and slumped over, putting her chin in her hands. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “It didn’t seem worth it.”

“What?” Sunny’s hair kept fidgeting around his shoulders. “How could it not be worth it? Everything you’ve said about, well, that, sounds awful. Didn’t you want to get better?”

“Yes,” Rin said, and paused. “Well, sort of. Yes and no. It’s hard to—” she gestured helplessly, struggling for words. “That feeling, or lack of feeling, or emptiness or whatever, was absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. But…”

She sighed and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know. Looking back… It was addictive.

“I just felt so tired all the time. _Feel_ so tired all the time. It’s not like just talking to people wasn’t worth it, _nothing_ was worth it. _Eating_ wasn’t worth the energy, and I’d just be getting fatter anyway. And it was horrible, but—but not caring about things was kind of nice, too, in a way. Haven’t you ever wanted to just stop doing things for a while? Take a break from it all? There was no urgency to anything. Even if I failed and disappointed everyone, I’d care, I’d be sad, but I didn’t care enough to try and stop it happening. I was going to fail anyway, eventually, so might as well get it over with. Maybe people’d realize how terrible I was and leave me alone then.

“So… yes, it was awful. But it was kind of nice, too, and I didn’t want to get better. Getting better would just make everything harder.”

She stopped talking and rubbed her eyes, fighting tears. The damn medication was making her weepy all the time. By her side Sunny stayed silent, and Rin could feel a few strands of hair brushing against her back.

“I would’ve done something,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what—hell, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do now, but—” he huffed in aggravation. “This entire situation is complete shit.”

Rin snorted, taken off guard. “Tell me about it.”

More hair, enough of it to be seen, curled around her and Rin glanced up at Sunny. She was surprised to see him looking away, jaw set and eyes closed like he was fighting tears himself. “Sorry,” he said. “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve been there.”

Hair curled around her fingers and she squeezed it gently. “I don’t blame you for that. I did my damnedest to keep anyone from noticing, honestly. That’s no one’s fault but mine.”

He shook his head. “Don’t say that.”

“But it’s true,” Rin explained, “I knew something was wrong. I didn’t want to bother anyone, I guess. You all have bigger problems to deal with—”

The hair tightened around her suddenly, dragging her up off the chair, and if she was surprised before she was shocked now to see that Sunny was actually crying. “Don’t _say_ that. God, Rin! There’s nothing in this world more important to me than you!” He clasped her cheeks in his hands for a moment before pulling her into a breathless hug. “I don’t ever want to lose you.”

Rin stood stock-still, processing, but then Sunny pressed his face into her shoulder so she could feel the dampness on his cheeks and she’d fought so hard to be alone but she was so _lonely—_

She sobbed and wrapped her arms around her brother. It felt like the last time she’d had this, the all-encompassing sensation of Sunny’s touch, she’d been a child. Little by little she relaxed into it until she was leaning fully against him. “I don’t want to feel this way,” she admitted shakily. “I never want to feel this way again.”

She felt Sunny’s hand smooth down her hair. “I know.”

“I don’t think I can ever feel happy again.”

He paused and drew back enough to look her in the eye. “You will,” he told her quietly. “It sounds like you’ll have to fight for it, but you’ll win. And even if you can’t have faith in that, I won’t—” he wiped away her tears with his thumb and she could feel his hands shaking, hear the words behind what he was saying. “I won’t let your smile die.”

Rin reached up and took his hand, closing her eyes. “Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll fight. And I’ll trust you, too.”

Sunny smiled and she couldn’t help but smile back. Happiness bubbled up in her chest and she giggled. “It’s just like you to be so dramatic,” she said teasingly. “ ‘I won’t let your smile die,’ it sounds like something from a movie.”

Sunny mock-scoffed and tossed his hair. “I see my elegant way with words will go unappreciated yet again. I can’t help it if the atmosphere calls for a certain level of grace!”

Rin smacked his shoulder and laughed again, then set her hands on her hips and sighed. “Well, it’s too bad about the dinner, though.”

Sunny blinked. “What about the dinner?”

“We can’t go out looking like this,” Rin said, gesturing to their tear-stained faces and red eyes. “It would be a travesty!”

Sunny smiled slyly and put a hand around her shoulders. “Oh, Rin, just point me to the foundation and eyeliner and I’ll have us looking better than ever. We’ll arrive fashionably late to our reservation, and all the other guests will be jealous that I got to have dinner with such a lovely lady.”

Rin laughed softly, rubbing her eye uncertainly. “… Even with my big thighs?”

Sunny paused and looked guilty again. “Of course.”

She shifted her weight from foot to foot and dropped her voice to a mutter. “Since I’m going to be eating more now, I guess you’ll have to put up with a manly-looking sister.”

His arm looped through hers and he struck a gentlemanly pose. “And you’ll have to put up with a girly-looking brother. We make a rather dashing pair, don’t we? I think by tomorrow all the fashion magazines will be clamoring to put together new lines.”

Rin was surprised enough to laugh, then relaxed into a smile again. “… Thanks, Sunny.”

“My pleasure,” he told her, smiling back. “Now, where did you keep that makeup of yours again?”

 

 

 

Gradually, the sun lit up the fog. The IGO First Biotope was bathed in the light of dawn, beasts stirring from their nests and holes, and Rin dug her toes into the moist dirt. The warmth of the morning sun graced her skin, and she breathed deeply, rolling forward onto the balls of her feet.

A roar came from behind her and she grinned, taking off running. The fog curled around her and stretched before her, and she kept running through it.

 

 

 

A year later, when Rin turned nineteen, she sat around the dining table with Mansam, Sunny, and Marni. They had arranged a lavish spread, as usual, and she pressed a hand to her full stomach as she sat back. The black raspberry glaze on the Solo Duck was particularly good, she thought. Her chair creaked in protest, its delicate frame worn from years of use by impossibly heavy figures. Rin smirked and pressed back farther, making it creak more.

Marni, who was after all a normal human, ate considerably less than the three of them. She still polished off a decent serving, though—Rin had made a mental note that she favored the Ten-Yolk Egg Risotto. Mansam, as always, dug into his alcohol-laden meat dishes with relish. Sunny had picked at his food and complained, but throughout the night Rin felt the light touch of his hair against her shoulders, draped in a protective cloak.

As she relaxed, Rin smiled and was content.

 

 

 

When Rin was twenty, she saw Zebra again. He wore loose, ragged clothes that obviously hadn’t been washed for a while, no shoes, and a long metal plant wrapped around his head to keep his mouth closed and his arms locked behind his back.

He kept his eyes straight ahead as the contingent of guards fanned out to receive the IGO party. Rin checked him over for wounds carefully, but distance and people between them prevented her from knowing for sure that he was alright. He didn’t seem to be bleeding, at least, though the plant restraining him couldn’t have been comfortable. She glanced at Ichiryuu, but his face betrayed none of his thoughts.

“President,” a bloodstained man called out to them around three cigars as they approached. “Bastard put up a fight, but we got him. Got the papers?”

Ichiryuu nodded, producing a few sheets for the man to sign with a flourish. They went to Warden Love next, who looked them over carefully.

“All in order,” she said, her wings buzzing to life as she moved to stand in front of Zebra, craning her neck up to see his face. “There’s a nice, cozy cell in Honey Prison waiting for you, dear. I’m sure you’ll be right at home in no time.”

A low rumble rolled from Zebra’s chest as he loomed over her, his eyes darkening. Warden Love chuckled and patted his knee, not disconcerted in the least though appearances suggested he could crush her just by falling forward. She met his eyes unflinchingly, and Zebra was the one who leaned away and backed down first. From her quiet spot by Ichiryuu’s side Rin thought that maybe bare skin was not Warden Love’s only armor.

“Custody of the prisoner now goes to the Warden of Honey Prison,” Ichiryuu intoned, his face stony. “There he shall remain until his sentence, continual execution for the rest of his days, has been carried out. The sentence, pronounced by fair trial, does not restrict access to food nor water, though no special allowances shall be made. The prisoner is to remain chained at all times and given no opportunity to escape through outside assistance or use of his own power.” He pressed the pen to the page and signed off on the order. “As President of the International Gourmet Organization, I pass this order.”

Rin couldn’t help but wince as Zebra’s sentence was read aloud. There was a solemn air about the group despite Warden Love’s smile and the loud puffs the bloody man took of his cigars. Everyone was aware of the deep lines around Ichiryuu’s mouth, remnants of old smiles, some of which were prideful ones for his Four Heavenly Kings. Zebra stared resolutely forward.

The papers went back to Warden Love, who folded them neatly. “Before being imprisoned, the prisoner has the right to speak to a family member,” she said. “Is one such person present?”

Rin lifted her chin, stepping forward. “I am.”

Warden Love met her eyes, recognition flicking across her face for a moment. Her smile grew faintly. “Very well. You have fifteen minutes, and a guard will be present at all times.”

Rin nodded in acquiescence, turning to where Zebra sat chained. The others moved away slightly to give them the semblance of privacy, save for a young man with a scar down his face and an absolutely ridiculous green pompadour. He stayed behind, keeping guard.

Rin slid a hand across the plant wrapped around Zebra’s arms, examining it to distract herself. Its stem lay down his spine with the leaves fanning out to wrap around the outside of his arms and draw them in tightly. The base wrapped twice around his face, the leaves intertwining to totally cover his jaw. “Manacle Fern,” she identified. “I thought they were extinct.”

“We revived them only recently,” the green-haired man interjected. “It was really an effort, since we had to first locate which mineral they grew from, and which conditions were necessary to produce a sprout, all of which was information long since lost. It turns out they need a mixture of silicon and copper…”

Rin tuned him out completely, tracing the leaves over Zebra’s mouth. “Can you take it off for a moment?”

The man faltered and looked contrite. “Because of the nature of his abilities, I’m afraid not.”

Rin could accept that that made sense. The green man glanced away and apparently decided it was better to keep silent. Rin sat down across from Zebra and smiled lightly. He pressed his eyelids closed for a second before finally making eye contact with her. Rin’s breath caught in her throat and words tripped on her tongue, rendering her speechless for a long second. It was difficult to interpret Zebra’s expression with half of it covered, but she could read his eyes well enough.

“You don’t regret anything, do you?” she asked, too softly for anyone but him to hear. “None of the destruction you’ve caused, or the death, or even this.”

He shook his head slightly, as much as the Manacle Fern would allow. Rin laughed once in disbelief and had to smile, ducking her head to press her hand to her mouth.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she said into her fingers, knowing he could hear her no matter what. “You know, I think that of the five of us, only Toriko and Sunny really made it in adulthood unscathed.” She smiled wryly, looking up again. “The rest of us, we all kind of self-destructed, didn’t we? Coco locked himself up, I stabbed myself in the face, you stabbed everything _else_ in the face… We just couldn’t handle it, huh?”

Zebra met her eyes steadily, and Rin could fool herself into thinking that she still saw the boy who had taken her hand even though she was so different. She reached out and put her hands on either side of his face, the metal cold against her skin.

“I found my way out,” she told him quietly. “It took time, and it was hard, but I did. I think that Coco will too, eventually, once he stops pushing everyone away. Zebra…” she knocked her forehead against his gently. “Don’t stay in that place forever.” Her eyes flushed with tears but her voice stayed steady. “Come and have a meal with us, sometime.”

She held his eyes, and he hers, until they both shifted; Rin to wrap her arms around his neck, and Zebra to press his chin into her shoulder.

“Do you want me to visit you?”

She leaned back so that he could move his head and he shook it no.

“Are you sure?”

A nod.

“Okay.” She hugged him briefly again, feeling his warmth seeping through the chill of the metal. “I know you’re angry, and that’s fine. You can do good things with anger. Don’t forget.”

She watched him close his eyes and nod before she stood to go. Her fingers rested against his shoulder for as long as they could, trailing off when she got too far away. The Manacle Fern creaked as he turned his head slightly to watch her receding back.

 

 


End file.
